As cool as invincible ninjas may sound, in this case they’re rather subpar. The invincible ninjas in this case aren’t on your side, but are instead working to take you down. The ninjas are superbugs, or infections that are resistant to almost all known antibiotics. So how does this happen? What gives these bacteria their protection against all of our lines of defense?
Antibiotic resistance is naturally a slow process. As bacteria are exposed to antibiotic agents, the ones that aren’t killed are able to reproduce, spreading whatever gene they have that makes them resistant throughout the rest of the population. Due to the increasing use of antibiotics, both to treat infections and in other areas like the meat industry, bacteria have an increased exposure to these antibiotics, allowing for resistance to occur much quicker. A huge root of the antibiotic resistance problem is that people don’t seem to know how to use antibiotics. Lots of people will go to a doctor and demand antibiotics for any sort of problem they have without even knowing the cause. If that infection is the cause of a virus, antibiotics will have no use at all, and the only thing being accomplished would be the killing of some beneficial bacteria. Another problem is that if people DO have a bacterial infection and are prescribed antibiotics, they don’t take them properly. You have to take antibiotics at the same time every day, and for the full amount of time prescribed. Lots of people end up taking them at variable times and stop taking them before they’re finished because they feel better. Well, news flash, you didn’t kill all the bacteria, you left a couple that are now going to reproduce, a little bit stronger than before.
Another reason that antibiotic resistance is becoming more widespread is the use of antibiotics in the meat industry. Antibiotics have the effect of making animals gain weight, which is good for maximizing how much meat you get from an animal. The problem arises that these animals are also in contact with bacteria that can cause infections, allowing them to be exposed to antibiotics without even having to infect a human. You may think you can circumvent this by buying labelled “antibiotic free” meats, but this is a bit of a misnomer. “Antibiotic free” in regards to meat just means that there are no antibiotics detectable in the animal at the time it was killed for meat, not that there were no antibiotics used.
More and more bacteria are developing drug resistance every year due to this misuse of antibiotics. An article from LiveScience discusses two new infectious agents that were placed on the CDC’s urgent threat list, Candida auris, an emerging fungal infection that poses a major global health threat, and the family Acinetobacter, which causes infection in various parts of the body. The article cites the CDC saying that drug resistant Acinetobacter caused around 8,500 infections and 700 deaths in 2017, and is common in healthcare settings. The fact that antibiotic resistance is spreading throughout many different species is worrying. As more and more bacteria are unable to be treated by antibiotics, there’s a higher chance of contracting a life-threatening infection.
Another group of drug resistant bacteria are the Enterobacteriaceae family, which includes E. coli, Shigella, and Salmonella, lots of which have developed resistance to carbapenems, typically a last resort antibiotic for drug resistant bacteria. These bacteria are discussed by the NCBI. These infections can take place in many parts of the body, like the urinary tract, lungs, bloodstream, and digestive tract. They are usually hospital-acquired infections, and most patients who are infected by antibiotic resistant Enterobacteriaceae spend a lot of time in healthcare settings due to unrelated issues, like surgeries. These are dangerous infections because they can cause awful symptoms, and the fact that they’re common as hospital-acquired infections means they’re most likely to infect immunocompromised individuals, making the infection even worse.
In my opinion, superbugs are some of the scariest things out there. They’re tiny unstoppable juggernauts ready to just barrel through all of our antibiotic defenses without even taking a hit. If we don’t start figuring out how to use antibiotics, and stop using them so frivolously for minor infections, viral infections, and in meat farming, superbugs could very easily wipe out millions and millions of people all over the world. We’re at a point where it’s extremely difficult to discover new antibiotics, so once we hit the end of our options, there’s nowhere else to turn to. We’re letting so many diseases that were once easily treatable with antibiotics take over and wreak havoc, and it’s only going to get worse without taking action against improper antibiotic use.
Microbiology with Eric 