INTRODUCTION
CREATION OF A SUPERBUG
Though it is highly speculated exactly when and where superbugs were first observed, it is certain how they come to be. Superbugs are the product of antibiotic and antimicrobial resistance. When antibiotics are ingested to treat a bacterial infection, the drugs will kill most of the targeted bacteria. In rare cases, one bacterium undergoes a mutation within its DNA that causes antibiotic resistance to occur. The newly resistant bacterium continues to reproduce and increases its population. Eventually, the new superbugs will outnumber the species that originally caused the infection.
Some methods used by bacteria to defend against antibiotics are to restrict the access, get rid of, destroy, change, bypass the effects of, or change the targets of antibiotics. Click here to learn more.
CAUSES OF SUPERBUGS
OVERPRESCRIPTION
Antibiotics are often misused in situations where patients are infected with a virus, like the cold or flu. In which case, antibiotics are not a treatment. Antibiotics should be prescribed when only absolutely necessary to slow the development of new superbugs, and decrease the rate of spreading. One issue of this is the preventative use of antibiotics in chemotherapy and following surgery. In these cases, new methods should be researched and implemented.
USE IN FARMING
Using antibiotics on livestock for veterinary treatment is allowed in most countries. However; some allow for the preventative use of antibiotics on all livestock, or to encourage growth. This harms the animals by making them susceptible to superbugs, but it also carries to risk of spreading infections to humans during food handling, or simply being in close proximity to these animals regularly.
DANGERS PRESENTED BY SUPERBUGS
Superbugs have the ability to spread like any other disease, and are especially an issue in hospital settings worldwide. A group of specific antibiotic-resistant bacteria called CRE, are likely to infect patients in hospitals, nursing homes, and other healthcare-related areas. Because these facilities are becoming more and more at risk for spreading superbugs, treatments we often take for granted such as chemotherapy and surgery may soon become too dangerous to perform.
Before the discovery of antibiotics, bacterial infections were often a death sentence. The concern today is that humans will no longer have an effective treatment for those who fall ill. Resulting in similar circumstances to those decades ago, and putting people at risk for lethal infections.
SUPERBUGS
Stopping the Drug-resistance Epidemic
