Poor sanitation and uncontrolled
use of antibiotics in developing countries are hindering efforts to reduce
death rates due to antibiotic-resistant infections. The amount of these resistant infections is
on the rise due to adaptations of the illnesses, resulting in bacteria known as
“superbugs”. Antibiotics have been used
for the past seventy years to treat infectious diseases. As a result of using these common drugs over
a long period of time, the infectious organism that the antibiotics are
designed to treat have adapted to the drug, causing it to have less of an
effect
Despite this adaptation,
researchers from Tel Aviv University have made a remarkable discovery that
could positively influence efforts made by the medical community to solve the
epidemic of the superbug. Novel proteins
were identified by sequencing the DNA of bacteria resistant to viral toxins,
which have the ability to prevent growth in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Researchers located mutations in bacterial
genes, leading them to identify a new small protein, growth inhibitor gene
product 0.6. This protein can inhibit the
activity of a protein essential to the bacterial cells, destroying the protein
that maintains the cell structure, resulting in the death of the cell. Researchers at this university are continuing
to study bacterial viruses, hoping this knowledge will eventually lead to
breakthrough in the fight against the superbug.
According to the Center for Disease
Control and Prevention “at least two million people become infected with
bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and at least 23,000 people die each
year as a direct result of these infections” in the United States. Personally, I think this is a shockingly
large number for these infections. This
discovery and continuing research will benefit and hopefully greatly reduce
this statistic. I think this is a
groundbreaking discovery that could lead to more advanced discoveries in the
future of medicine.
Original: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150128114100.htm
Additional: http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/
I liked this post!
ReplyDeleteI explain to people over and over in my veterinary hospital to GIVE ALL ANTIBIOTICS AS INSTRUCTED UNTIL FINISHED, specifically for this reason (and for the fact that I don't think it does their pet any good if they stop it early, or give it when they feel like it). We have seen several skin infections resistant to the common antibiotics we immediately go for to treat them, and I'm sure over-use or just noncompliance is a big factor in the development of super bugs. If we instruct an owner to give it for 10 days, and they give it for 6, then obviously it may not have been a long enough course of treatment to completely eliminate the body of that antibiotic... so the bacterial multiply, and perhaps become stronger and/or resistant... to where next time, we have to use another class of antibiotics, or put them on a 30 day course of treatment instead of only 10!
I also want to throw in there I had MRSA last year, was locked in an isolated hospital room for 3 days, and hated every second of it. That alone makes me love this post. Thanks for sharing!