When the Antibiotics Quit Working

Antibiotics are antimicrobial compounds widely prescribed by physicians to manage a variety of bacterial diseases. Apart from managing bacterial infections, antibiotics are used for the treatment and management of fungal diseases. Antibiotic agents have also been used to treat a variety of protozoan diseases. This implies that the traditional role of antibiotics that was discovered by Fleming as the agents potent against bacterial has now been expanded. However, antibiotics do not have significant effect to viral particles. Antibiotics work by a number of mechanisms where some classes of antibiotics like the beta-lactams act by inhibiting the beta-lactamase enzyme necessary for the survival of the bacteria. Other antibiotics act by inhibiting the cell wall synthesis thus depriving the bacterial of its protection (Todak, 2008). However, the worst has always been happening from the time Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin. Bacteria have been gaining resistance and now we have super bugs This is the stage which marks a scenario when antibiotics stop working. The paper discusses the context of when these important molecules stop working. The paper seeks to explain the origin of resistance from using agents which dont kill bacteria but instead energizes them.
Key words Bacteria and antibiotic resistance.

When the antibiotics stop working, a condition known as antibiotic resistance develops in the bacteria. The bacteria gain more adaptation to counter the antibiotic molecules and are no more killed. This is likely to cause more serious problems as the continuous administration of the antibiotics will make the bacteria stronger in what was one time in 1997 posted on the website of the NICE Project which said, What doesnt kill them, makes them stronger (NICE Project). If the antibiotics do not have the capacity to kill the bacteria, they will make the bacteria to be more adaptive to the surrounding in the body of an individual, and the result of all this will be that the bacteria disease management will be trickier. When this will happen, the world will be at peril where every bacterial pathogen will become super bugs.

The prescription of an antibiotic requires that vital information in the medicine package and doctors recommendation be treated with keenness by a patient. This way, problems of wrong antibiotic will be avoided. Another strategy may be to ensure that the physician only prescribe antibiotics to patients after the patient has been diagnosed to have a bacteria caused disease. Bacterial diseases include pneumonia, typhoid and malaria among others. The doctors should only prescribe antibiotics to patients after confirming that the patient does not have any reactions upon the use of a specific antibiotic. For instance, in the cure of pneumonia, amoxicillin would not be used on patients with allergic reactions. Therefore it is the obligation of the physicians to know what antibiotic, when to and when not to prescribe an antibiotic on patients.

Resistance to antibiotics happens when there is a spontaneous mutation in the DNA of the bacterium. When bacterias DNA becomes mutant such that its off springs have a totally different DNA from the original Bacterium, the antibiotic meant for them will stop working on them as it would not be of their shape and composition. This has always occurred to some classes of antibiotics such as penicillin where the bacteria have gained adaptations by producing penicillinase enzymes that make penicillin antibiotics obsolete. Another way that bacteria may become may be through the process of transformation. In this process, drug resistant strains such as multi-drug resistant staphylococcus aureas (MRSA) provide the drug resistance genes through transformation process.

Even with the prescription of a physician, many patients have always had a habit of overusing the antibiotics in the mind of getting well faster or clearing the bacteria effectively. People opt to overuse antibiotics with thoughts that they will get well faster or better. They end up using antibiotics even when they are not really sick. This makes the body to get used to these antibiotics such that when they are now needed in the body, they fail to work since the bacteria have got used to them and they can not kill them. Over using antibiotics will eventually cause their resistance to them in the body, a condition that is very vital in the health of an individual. Surgeons on the other hand also play a role in the overuse of antibiotics. 

During surgery, doctors use many antibiotics to protect the body of an individual from getting other infections. There is an advice to surgeons to use operating theatres that are sterile to avoid over use of antibiotics. There is a cause for alarm about what can likely happen if the bacterium that is resistance to antibiotics is the main cause of infections. This will cause infections that can not be cured by antibiotics. There are more deaths that are likely to occur until new antibiotics have been discovered. A number of nocosomial (hospital-acquired) infections have increasingly become common because of poor medical practice. If doctors will not change in the way infections are handled in hospital situation, more bugs are expected in the future which may sweep the entire human race.

In conclusion, resistance to antibiotic has been and will always be a great problem in the health of an individual. But as bacterium gets resistant to some specific antibiotic, doctors have always found out a new antibiotic that can kill such bacteria. Thanks to the ever growing knowledge on DNA technology and pharmacology. However, every individual should just take initiative and take the prescription of a physician so as to avoid causing this resistant by either over use or otherwise.

0 comments:

Post a Comment