The Importance Of Microbes To Human Health

There are many areas of healthcare and medicine that have a strong need for the development of new products, treatments, and technologies. One such area that would greatly benefit from novel developments surrounds the threat posed by microbes to human health. Microbes exist in hundreds of different forms, making it very difficult to develop a generalized treatment that can combat a broad selection of microbes. The microbes can be very dangerous to human health. They can cause severe disease and possibly death if they are untreated. The problem has been exacerbated recently as microbes have become increasingly resilient and resistant to existing treatment options. These hardy strains of microbes can survive treatment with conventional antibiotics

These infections are very dangerous because they often cannot be treated by antibiotics as the microorganisms have developed antibiotic resistance and are strong enough to have survived the sterilization procedures. Hospital Acquired Infections are often transmitted when health care providers become remiss and do not follow proper hygiene procedures. In response to the incidence of hospital acquired infections and the development of antibiotic resistant microbes, as well as an increased desire for protection against the outbreak of infectious diseases and a growing demand for superior hygiene, many scientists, researchers, and health care providers have begun working to develop new technologies to address the health concerns of the world today. Their approaches include working to develop new antibiotics, working to develop other technologies such as nanoparticles with antimicrobial properties that can be integrated into commercial products, and informing health care providers and the general public on common and simple ways to greatly reduce the amount of

These organisms are called multidrug resistant (MDR) microorganisms, such as bacterium, fungus, or parasites (Levy). The emergence of this large of a number of MDR microorganisms is a result of the quantity of antibiotics in circulation and an indication of the necessity that this number be reduced. In the United States of America, about 23 x 106 kilograms of antibiotics are used annually. About half are used in prescriptions to patients, and half are used in agriculture, such as by feeding them to livestock (Levy). The country with the highest levels of antibacterial resistance is China, with an average of 41% of resistance among hospital-acquired infections. Also, China has the highest growth rate of resistance. The top three countries maintaining these records worldwide include China, Kuwait, and The United States (Globalization and Health). Therefore, these are the states where the most change in antibiotic administration needs to occur, although it is essential that this change occur worldwide, not only in the countries it affects worst. The burden Antimicrobial Resistant organisms pose to our society are huge, and they go even beyond health risks. These antibiotic resistant microbes burden our country financially as well. It is estimated that the United States spends upwards of fifty-five billion dollars per year on antimicrobial resistance cases alone. This cost estimate also does not account for