The past year has seen an increased number of cases of ‘superbug’ infections. Superbugs, or antibiotic-resistant bacteria, are bacteria that are not affected to the medicines that doctors use to treat them. A British report estimates that 700,000 people every year die from these infections around the world.
In September of 2016 a 70-year old woman in Nevada in the USA died of an infection that was resistant to all 26 antibiotics currently available to treat it. Doctors think she picked up the infection in India, where she had been living for two years before returning to the USA. Other strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria are discovered all the time.
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a serious threat to the health of people all over the world. If these types of bacteria become common, surgeons might not be able perform life-saving operations anymore because the threat of infection would be too high. A person might die from a simple cut on the finger.
Bacteria evolve a resistance to antibiotics when they are constantly exposed to low doses of the medicine. The individual bacteria that are not killed off by the drug survive to have children that may show even stronger resistance. Bacteria may also ‘catch’ anti-biotic resistance when they absorb a mobile piece of DNA, called a plasmid, which carries those genes. For instance, the plasmid might give the bacteria the ability to make an enzyme that would break down the antibiotic so that the bacteria can survive.
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a serious threat to the health of people all over the world. If these types of bacteria become common, surgeons might not be able perform life-saving operations anymore because the threat of infection would be too high. A person might die from a simple cut on the finger.
There is something that can be done to stop the rise of superbugs. Don’t use antibiotics unless they are really necessary. For instance, antibiotics won’t help with influenza, which is a virus. Antibiotics are also used in huge amounts when factory farming animals for meat, especially pork. This produces an environment favorable for the creation and spread of superbugs.
Read more about how to stop the spread of superbugs in the NPR article “How You Can Stop Antibiotic Resistance (And Still Eat Bacon)” and learn more about them in “A Superbug That Resisted 26 Antibiotics”. You can also get more information from the Times Now article “Superbug From India Resistant To All Available Antibiotics” and the Washington Post article “The superbug that doctors have been dreading just reached the U.S.”
Watch bacteria evolve to resist antibiotics in just 12 days in the Science News for Students article “Scientists watch germs evolve into superbugs”. If you don’t have the time to read the articles, you can watch a two-minute video from NBC Health News Tonight.
