The Resistance Against The Resistance
Antibiotic resistance is when certain antibiotics lose their ability to render harmful pathogens inactive. When bacteria become resistant to antibiotics they will continue to grow and multiply without the antibiotics having any effect on them. Bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics are called superbugs because they are very hard to be destroyed within the body.
Antibiotic resistance can be caused by many things. The most common way in which bacterium build up a defence to antibiotics is by mutation. Mutation of a bacterium is when the DNA make up of the bacterium is altered, this in turn will change the shape of the antigen of a bacterium. Antibiotics will then not be able to inactivate the bacterium as they do not recognise it. One of the most common reasons as to why bacterium mutate is because many people do not finish their course of antibiotics. This is because they feel better so they stop taking the antibiotics, this means the bacterium only get exposed to the antibiotics enough to build up a resistance not enough to cause them to become inactive. Bacterium’s can also release special enzymes that are sent to attack the antibiotics. When doing this the enzymes will engulf the antibiotics which make the bacterium resistant to the treatment. Another way in which bacterium can build up a resistance is by changing how permeable the cell membrane is. In doing this the bacterium is limiting the amount of access points into it. By doing this the antibiotics will struggle to get into the bacterium, making it more resistant.
Misuse or overuse of antibiotics plays a key role as to why bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics. With antibiotics easily available these days people will s...
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...less bacterium will become resistant as the right antibiotics are prescribed. The government must control and monitor what is happening with regards to dispensation of antibiotics to make sure the doctors are doing their jobs properly. Doctors should only prescribe antibiotics to life threatening diseases, not your common cold. This will decrease the demand for antibiotics and therefor there is less of a chance of the bacterium mutating. Doctors and governments can also work together to create awareness of what is happening with regard to the antibiotic resistance. This in turn will make the communities of South Africa more conscious when using antibiotics. When doctors are testing new antibiotics extensive research should be done. Doctors should be looking past the patients health but also the possible effects on the environment and future use of the antibiotic.
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are created when mutations in the pathogen's genetic code occurs, changing the protein in the bacteria that the antibiotics normally go after into a shape that the antibiotic can not recognize. The average bacteria divides every twenty minutes, so if a contaminated spot has one single bacteria in the morning, there could be trillions on that same spot at the end of the day. That means that when counting all the possibilities of mutations, the amount of mutated offspring that the bacteria might have formed during those replications could be as high as in the millions. Fortunately though, this does not happen so frequently that it is normally an issue. The amount of non-mutated bacteria vastly outnumbers the mutated ones and many of the mutations occurring in the bacteria usually have either a harmful effect, or not effect at all on its function. That means that the pathogen is still relatively less harmful than it c...
According to USA Today, U.S. doctors are prescribing enough antibiotics to give to 4 out of 5 Americans every year, an alarming pace that suggests they are being excruciatingly overused. In fact, Dr. Aunna Pourang from MD states, “to give you an idea of how high the pressure is to prescribe antibiotics, I didn’t get a job once because during the interview I told the lead physician that I only prescribe antibiotic prescriptions when they are warranted.” The development and widespread obsession of antibiotics, or drugs that kill bacteria and thereby reduce infection, has helped billions of people live longer, healthier lives. Unfortunately, the more we rely on and abuse antibiotics, the more bacteria develop resistance to them, which makes treating infections that much more challenging and leads to the growth of drug-resistant strains of bacteria. Research from the Center of Disease Control found that two million people in the United States become infected with antibiotic resistant bacteria, while 23,000 people die from such infections each year. Americans often aren’t informed on the power of the human body and rush to assumptions when perfection isn’t present. In a nutshell, the obsession of antibiotics is quite deadly and needs to be addressed before it’s too
Therefore, local communities must take actions regarding antibiotic-resistance, whether they are awareness programs or state and nationally regulated laws. The act of hindering antibiotic-resistance development is also an individual commitment. People must understand the effects of excess antibiotics and commit to making a difference. These acts may be as simple as not demanding unnecessary antibiotics and finish the entire course when antibiotics are prescribed. Regardless to the natural evolution of bacteria, society must delay the development of antibiotic-resistance within bacteria with humanity has hastened
Antibiotic resistance is one of the most important issues facing health care today, with wide reaching future implications if abuse continues. In the United States alone, antibiotic resistance is responsible for over two million illnesses and 23,000 deaths per year. Providers need to be judicious in the disbursement of these life saving pharmacological agents, while being informative of why antibiotics are not always the answer (Talkington, Cairns, Dolen, & Mothershed, 2014). In the case listed below, several issues need to be addressed including perception, knowledge deficit, and the caregiver’s role. This paper will focus on whether a prescription for antibiotics is appropriate and other courses of action that may be taken instead.
Antibiotic resistance is a consequence of the misuse of antibiotics that give pathogenic bacteria the ability to withstand the effects of an antibiotic. Resistance occurs when bacteria change in such a way that they survive exposure to antibiotics. Resistance may not be confined to a single antibiotic, but may affect multiple antimicrobial classes. Antibiotic resistance is a major problem and everyone needs to work together to combat it - from medical practitioners to patients.
Bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics is a major problem not only for the United States, but worldwide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2012) the cause is related to “widespread overuse, as well as inappropriate use, of antibiotics that is fueling antibiotic resistance”. According to World Health Organization (2013) resistance is a global concern for several reasons; it impedes the control of infectious diseases, increases healthcare costs, and the death rate for patients with resistant bacterial infections is twice of those with non-resistant bacterial infections.
Bacterial resistance to antibiotics has presented many problems in our society, including an increased chance of fatality due to infections that could have otherwise been treated with success. Antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections, but overexposure to these drugs give the bacteria more opportunities to mutate, forming resistant strains. Through natural selection, those few mutated bacteria are able to survive treatments of antibiotics and then pass on their genes to other bacterial cells through lateral gene transfer (Zhaxybayeva, 2011). Once resistance builds in one patient, it is possible for the strain to be transmitted to others through improper hygiene and failure to isolate patients in hospitals.
In the last decade, the number of prescriptions for antibiotics has increases. Even though, antibiotics are helpful, an excess amount of antibiotics can be dangerous. Quite often antibiotics are wrongly prescribed to cure viruses when they are meant to target bacteria. Antibiotics are a type of medicine that is prone to kill microorganisms, or bacteria. By examining the PBS documentary Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria and the article “U.S. government taps GlaxoSmithKline for New Antibiotics” by Ben Hirschler as well as a few other articles can help depict the problem that is of doctors prescribing antibiotics wrongly or excessively, which can led to becoming harmful to the body.
Resistance first appears in a population of bacteria through conditions that favor its selection. When an antibiotic attacks a group of bacteria, cells that are highly susceptible to the medicine will die. On the other hand, cells that have some resistance from the start or acquire it later may survive. At the same time, when antibiotics attack disease-causing bacteria, they also attack benign bacteria. This process eliminates drug-susceptible bacteria and favors bacteria that are resistant. Two things happen, populations of non-resistant and harmless bacteria are diminished, and because of the reduction of competition from these harmless and/or susceptible bacteria, resistant forms of disease-causing bacteria proliferate. As the resistant forms of the bacteria proliferate, there is more opportunity for genetic or chromosomal mutation (spontaneous DNA mutation (1)) or transformation, that comes about either through a form of microbial sex (1) or through the transference of plasmids, small circles of DNA (1), which allow bacteria to interchange genes with ease. Sometimes genes can also be t...
Thesis: With the advent of antibiotics in 1929 Fleming said, "The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops.Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant."With the overuse of antibiotics today we have seen this very idea come to be.Over usage is caused most prevalently by a lack of education on the part of the patient.Thus stated, the way to overcome such a circumstance is to educate, not only the patient but also the physician.
There are many medical professionals who believe that the rise of antibiotic resistance is a result of the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. Dr. Jim Wilde, a paediatric emergency medicine physician at the Medical College of Georgia believes that the medical profession is losing the war against resistance...
The most effective way to combat pathogenic bacteria which invade the body is the use of antibiotics. Overexposure to antibiotics can easily lead to resistant strains of bacteria. Resistance is dangerous because bacteria can easily spread from person to person. Simple methods for preventing excessive bacterial spread are often overlooked. Not all preventative measures are even adequate. Doctors and patients often use antibiotics unnecessarily or incorrectly, leading to greater resistance. Antibiotics are used heavily in livestock and this excessive antibiotic use can create resistant bacteria and transfer them to humans. In order to reduce resistant bacteria,
Resistant infections result in increased antimicrobial usage, prolonged hospitalisation and increased costs.[41] Antimicrobial resistant influenced infections can necessitate additional investigation, complex and expensive treatments, longer hospital stays and lead to greater mortality.[39]
Antibiotics is one of the most effective weapons that the human race has against bacterial infections, as antibiotic treatments can clear an infection within a three to eight day period. However, the constant use of antibiotics has allowed bacteria to mutate their DNA, making them more resistant against the drug. Many scientist theorize that this resistance pattern will lead to a superbug, a bacterium strain that is resistant to possibly all antibiotics. That kind of disease could be catastrophic and lead to a decline in population and progression. The growing issue of mutation made the idea of restricting medicine more favorable, but regulations against antibiotics could be a huge mistake. Many different companies relies on the leniency to
...cs to patients. Prioritize the recipient base so that antibiotics are used as a last resort. This could be made possible by public use of good illness prevention skills such as washing hands and keeping woulds clean (Davies). These steps and others could greatly reduce or even possibly solve the entire problem of antibiotic resistance and allow us to continue to use antibiotics in a responsible manner. Because regardless of resistance, antibiotics does save lives every day. The overuse of antibiotics in livestock, the risky use of GMOs, and the human clinical overprescription of antibiotics are risks that truly do outweigh any benefits of continuing use at it’s current pace. These are problems which can be easily remedied and we should do everything in our power to do so. The evidence is there, resistance is on the rise. We must stop it before it truly is too late.