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Huh? make no sense to you? some of the information below may help you understand more about antibiotics and problems related we are all facing
Antibiotic resistance becomes a heated topic and major health concerns in recent years. News like this appears from time to time. It is no longer an issue only for the health care professionals. General public should have more awareness.
Antibiotics and similar drugs, together called antimicrobial agents, have been used for the last 70 years to treat patients who have infectious diseases. Since the 1940s, these drugs have greatly reduced illness and death from infectious diseases. Antibiotic use has been beneficial and, when prescribed and taken correctly, their value in patient care is enormous. However, these drugs have been used so widely and for so long that the infectious organisms the antibiotics are designed to kill have adapted to them, making the drugs less effective. Many fungi, viruses, and parasites have done the same. Some microorganisms may develop resistance to a single antimicrobial agent (or related class of agent), while others develop resistance to several antimicrobial agents or classes. These organisms are often referred to as multidrug-resistant or MDR strains. In some cases, the microorganisms have become so resistant that no available antibiotics are effective against them.
Antimicrobial drug resistance occurs everywhere in the world and is not limited to industrialized nations. Hospitals and other healthcare settings are battling drug-resistant organisms that spread inside these institutions. Drug-resistant infections also spread in the community at large. Examples include drug-resistant pneumonias, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and skin and soft tissue infections.
People infected with drug-resistant organisms are more likely to have longer and more expensive hospital stays, and may be more likely to die as a result of the infection. When the drug of choice for treating their infection doesn’t work, they require treatment with second- or third-choice drugs that may be less effective, more toxic, and more expensive. This means that patients with an antimicrobial-resistant infection may suffer more and pay more for treatment.
Source: CDC
Hong Kong is plighted by a multitude of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. As bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter baumannii which are causative agents of the major infectious syndromes - skin and soft tissue infections, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, septicaemia - become increasingly resistant to agents that are widely used for their empirical treatment. Clinicians face increasing numbers of “hit and miss” situations in the hospital and in the community. While there is clearly a need for new antibiotics, pharmaceutical investment in antibiotic research has declined in the past decade leading to decreasing number of new antibacterial drugs approved for marketing and a dry pipeline for the near future.
Source: IMPACT guideline 2012
The following diagram shows the timeline of the development of antibiotics and their resistance. We can appreciate how quickly the bacteria can develop tools to combat against our troops, the antibiotics. While we are searching hard for newer antibiotics, we should also try to reduce the use of them if appropriate to reduce the chance of development of resistance.
Source: Switchyward Media
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