Picture a world without antibiotics available, whatsoever. As a child, or very ~mature~ adult, you would have to suffer through dreaded strep throat. Image being stuck with the frog in your throat, bed ridden with fever and unable to eat beloved food because it literally pains you to swallow. And the only thing you could do is wallow in misery until your body fights off the infection in 7 days rather than a mere 5.
I want those who are reading to now picture how contagious you remain without antibiotics available. Ranging from infants to elderly to those immunocompromised, these individuals can lose their life to an infection that you got over in a week. And through antibiotic resistance, this demographic of people are now vulnerable and robbed of a treatment their bodies may require.
It may sound intense, though it is going to take a group effort to not eliminate antibiotic resistance, but rather slow the momentum in the resistance. This requires activism from doctors, patients, farmers, veterinarians and more–around the world. Antibiotic resistance is not an isolated event and is progressing in every corner of every country.
And when I say every corner, I am quite literal. Antibiotic resistance is not an issue that only doctors and their patients need to control. This resistance issue has leaked out of the hospital and into the environment. Further affecting the soil we grow food in, the food the livestock eat that we later consume and even our water sources.
After reading this post, you should walk away with these two understandings:
- What antibiotics are and further what antibiotic resistance is by definition.
- Real life examples of the issues arising from antibiotic resistance.
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Antibiotics are medications that treat bacterial infections through killing the targeted bacteria or slowing/suspending the bacteria’s grow by interfering with bacteria reproduction. Antibiotic resistance arises when the target bacteria develop the ability to fight off the antibiotics intended to kill them, allowing the infection to flourish. One distinction of antibiotic resistance that is important to understand is that it is not our bodies that are resistant to antibiotics, but rather the bacteria itself become resistant. Ultimately, antibiotic resistance began from the bacteria’s will to merely survive. This innate survival of bacteria has become so intense that superbugs (strains of bacteria that are resistant to the majority of antibiotics). When penicillin was discovered and in circulation for patients, antibiotic resistance became possible and is now a growing problem. So how extensive is antibiotic resistance around the world?
Hospitals / Medical Facilities
Hospitals are full of patients vulnerable for many different diseases and infections if the staff is not careful or the building is not adequately equipped. A specific hospital-acquired infection that has become significant are Enterococci infections. Healthcare practitioners are alarmed by this infection specifically because it is tied to a very high rate of antibiotic resistance. And to make matters worse, Enterococci are carried by healthy individuals (such as doctors, hospital staff and visitors) and brought on to the immunocompromised patients within the facility. Enterococcus species have many different virulence factors that allow survival outside and inside of a patient. And now that this species is resistant to common fluoroquinolones antibiotics, it is beyond troublesome to everyone entering the hospitals and medical facilities.
Environment
Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are a challenge to human health and have now infiltrated the very soil we live on top of. The most scary discovery of the soil and environment studies done is that antibiotic resistance was here possibly before we created synthetic antibiotics. The living organisms in the soils are affected by antibiotics already and the addition of our synthetic antibiotics the human population distributes only make ARGs more prevalent. It is in soil we grow vegetables, fruits, grains–all which are now exposed to ARGs and further consumed by humans and animals.
On top of the issue of ARGs in our soil, antibiotic resistance even effects our water sources (e.g. creeks, in this case) and extends throughout the complex food web of the world. And this extension is linked to the antibiotic pollution of creek sediments from industrial effluents, enriching the body of water with antibiotic resistant bacteria and the ARGs they have. Human pollution has forever been a concern, but did you know this includes antibiotic pollution? It is quite terrifying how the connection of abiotic and biotic things we were introduced to in elementary school are now prevalent in other ways than just energy dispersion.
Food (!!!)
***All I can say is that now our very food has been tampered with, it’s gone TOO far.
Possibly your doctor has suggested you look into purchasing food items with probiotics, or maybe social media pushed the health benefits of probiotics. Popular foods and drinks loaded with probiotics include maybe yogurt or kombucha. And as we have grown up and learned about positive changes in our diets, probiotics are always encourages. But recently, scientists have looked into the possible link of probiotics and antibiotic resistance. One of the biggest concerns with the push for probiotics, are both the vertical transfer of probiotic bacteria causing resistance within the gut biota and the horizontal transfer of multi-drug resistance to pathogens and intestinal microflora during antibiotic therapy. Never would I have ever predicted that the probiotic food I have been encourage to eat, could now be found dangerous by possible antibiotic resistance.
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Luckily, upcoming healthcare officials in varying parts of the world are now being taught the dangers of antibiotic resistant. Particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan Pharmacy schools have integrated antibiotic resistance and appropriate antibiotic therapy education in their curriculum. This is a step to bridge the gap of antibiotic positives and negatives when prescribing patients. And in turn, it is up to our population as patients and other occupations effected by antibiotic resistance to take and use antibiotics only when needed so that their advantages may continued to be used to treat those who need them.
Chandler's Epidemiology & Microbiology Blog 