Antibiotic Resistance in the United States One of the most important breakthroughs in modern medicine and public health efforts is the discovery of Penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928. The effects of this discovery cannot be overstated; antibiotics have saved millions of lives and have significantly reduced morbidity and mortality in the global population (Fauci & Morens, 2012). The 1950s and 1970s saw the discovery of many new antibiotics classes, with no new classes of antibiotics discovered since the late 1980s (Aminov, 2010). While integral to the survival of many people, public health officials and the Centers for Disease Control have warned that the overuse and improper use of antibiotics by humans and industries can limit the effectiveness of antibiotics and create antibiotic resistant strains of diseases (Ventola, 2015). …show more content…
In April 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the problem of antibiotic resistance “is so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine...A post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can kill, is a very real possibility for the 21st century” (Organization & Asia, 2015). Many very common, easily treated bacterial pathogens are already known to have some level of antibiotic resistance. These include "Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and species of enterobacter, salmonella, and shigella" (Nathan & Cars,
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...
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.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), describes antibiotic resistance is the ability of bacteria or other microbes to resist the effects of antibiotic treatment. () So instead of being destroyed by the medications, the bacteria survives and continues to reproduce, resultant in new communicable diseases that even more difficult to treat.
One of the many growing concerns in the world today is antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance happens when the bacteria that an antibiotic is made to treat learns how to fight the treatment, and develops a strain of DNA that resists the antibiotic. The resistance is then spread from generation to generation and from one bacteria to another bacteria. The article “Antibiotic Resistance Is Worrisome, but Not Hopeless” states that the misuse and overuse of antibiotics by humans is one of the reasons for the development of resistance but not the only reason. All in all, antibiotics are important to our country's public health. Education is one way that our country could aid the misuse and overuse of antibiotics that leads to resistance. The
“The World Health Organization projects that as drug effectiveness decreases and antibiotic resistance increases, public education becomes more and more crucial” (476) Antibiotics were discovered in 1940 and since have been abused and misused. Between bad practices and lack of proper education antibiotic resistance has been allowed to occur. The only way to combat bacterial infections is with strong patient education and following the correct schedule in taking antibiotics.
The exacerbating effects and devastation caused by bacteria such as Mycobacterium,Vibrio cholerae, Bacillus anthracis, Xylophilus ampelinus, etc, is the growing threat of drug-resistance in many parts of the world. Identifying and addressing barriers to effective and timely diagnosis and treatment of drug-resistant diseases will be critical to preventing further emergence of strains of the disease with broad-spectrum resistance.
Approximately one year ago in Kentucky, a man went to sleep thinking he might have caught a flu. The next day, he is rushed to the local hospital while coughing up chunks of lung tissue; within a few hours he experiences organ failure and lips into a coma. Over the next two days, two other patients come in with the same symptoms and die almost immediately. This epidemic that swept over this small area in Kentucky was an ultra resistant strain of staph infection known as MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (Eisler, 2013). MRSA and other species of resistant bacteria have arisen from the global overuse of antibiotics. Over the years, resistant strains of bacteria have become more and more difficult to fend of using common antibiotic treatments. If something is not done to stop antibiotic resistance, completely resistant strains of bacteria, which we will be unable to kill through use of antibiotics.
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.
Penicillin, derived from the mold Penicillium, is the first antibiotic to successfully treat bacterial infections on humans. It was accidentally discovered by scientist, Alexander Fleming. While Fleming was growing Staphylococcus, a serious and often deadly infection, in a dish, he noticed the bacteria had stopped growing after a mold found its way
This turn of events presents us with an alarming problem. Strains of bacteria that are resistant to all prescribed antibiotics are beginning to appear. As a result, diseases such as tuberculosis and penicillin-resistant gonorrhea are reemerging on a worldwide scale (1). 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.
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.
Antibiotic resistance occurs in bacteria when the use of antibiotics manages to kill off every bacteria except for a lone few. The lone few then live to pass on their DNA every time they undergo binary fission and the antibiotic resistance bacteria spread. This antibiotic resistance has given rise to numerous problems in the medical world as the bacteria they used to handle with a prescription of antibiotics now thrive without barriers. Currently, the main six bacteria that present problems with antibiotic resistance are Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacter spp., collectively known as the ESKAPE pathogens. Collectively these ESKAPE pathogens claim
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...
Antibiotics are used worldwide and although their uses have helped many people, it doesn't come without risk. The use of antibiotics treats people and animals alike to cure infection and are easily excusable through physicians. However in recent years, since antibiotics are used so universally, antibiotic- resistant strains have become a growing problem. This suggest that the bacteria is adapting to the antibiotics and through natural selection, the antibiotic- resistant bacteria have grown in numbers. The scientific community worries about future treatment of diseases if the bacteria continues to adapt. For example tuberculosis which hasn't been a problem in some time, has started to reoccur as a much harder to treat strain. Antibiotics are the go to method of treating infection but we need to be careful when we are using them.
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,