Antibiotic Resistance Crisis Facing Modern Medicine

What is a superbug?

According to this article in WebMD, people often refer to “superbugs” as bacteria that has become resistant to multiple antibiotics. Doctors will use the term “multidrug-resistant bacteria”. According to this article in Medical News Today, these drug-resistant bacteria infect anywhere from 2-3 million people in the US per year and kill around 23,000. Some various forms of drug-resistant bacteria that are labeled as an “urgent threat” by the CDC include Clostridioides difficile, Neisseria Gonorrhoeae, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae. These organisms are resistant to almost all forms of antibiotics and cause death in the majority of people who get bloodstream infections from them. Furthermore, horizontal gene transfer such as conjugation and transduction allows resistance factors and abilities to be transferred to other bacteria within their bacterial family.

How have we gotten to this crisis point?

The most obvious reason that has created this issue of “superbugs” is the misuse and overuse of antibiotics. Many people believe that antibiotics can be used to treat all types of illnesses, including viruses such as influenza on which antibiotics have no effect. When people use too many antibiotics, their bodies may lose “good” or healthy bacteria that keep them healthy, further creating stronger bacteria and infections. Doctors can also exacerbate the problem by overprescribing antibiotics and sometimes prescribing the wrong ones. When I was in Thailand for a study abroad program, I could receive antibiotics from the pharmacy without a prescription from a doctor, showing that in many places people will self-diagnose themselves and seek antibiotics in the wrong situations. The last problem we face is the gross overuse of antibiotics in animals, particularly farm animals that will be consumed by humans. This creates drug-resistant bacteria in farm animals and eventually humans as well.

What can we do to prevent it?

I find the rise in antibiotic-resistant drugs in current times to be frightening and of utmost urgency to our medical system. In a way, I think it is comparable to environmental issues facing the planet: people are pretending that that issue doesn’t exist because it cannot be seen directly. I think if more people knew the statistics about death and infection from these drug-resistant microorganisms, it may create more concern and action in the public. In order to prevent these issues from getting worse, this article by the CDC recommends washing hands, covering coughs, getting recommended vaccines, and staying home when sick. Other ways to protect yourself and others from antibiotic resistance include taking your antibiotics exactly as a doctor prescribes, never sharing antibiotics with others, safely discarding medicine, and most importantly, never taking antibiotics when they are unnecessary or if a doctor hasn’t prescribed them.