Antibiotic resistance poses a significant threat to global public health—and this threat is only growing. We’re here to explain what it is, why it matters, and the important role syndromic infectious disease diagnostics plays to help combat antibiotic resistance.
Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria no longer respond to the drugs designed to target them. These drugs, called antibiotics, are typically prescribed to battle infections such as strep throat. When resistance develops, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with how the human body responds to infection or medication. Rather, it’s the bacteria themselves that undergo changes that lead to developing resistance mechanisms—or acquiring them from others—to ensure their survival.
The more frequently bacteria are exposed to antibiotics, the more opportunities they have to develop or acquire resistance to them.
Over time, this process can make antibiotics less effective in fighting infections. It can even lead to the emergence of dangerous superbugs that are resistant to many different types of antibiotics and make infections hard to treat, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Antibiotic resistance can develop quickly, especially when mutating bacteria are exposed to antibiotics that are prescribed excessively or unnecessarily. Antibiotic resistance can also make diagnosing and properly treating deadly infections like sepsis more difficult.
Some bacteria are naturally resistant to certain antibiotics without having to undergo any changes. That’s why prescribing the right antibiotic depends on identifying the pathogen that caused the infection. Antibiotic resistance also occurs over time by genetic mutation or by horizontal gene transfer.
Genetic mutation occurs when bacterial DNA changes, or mutates, to help the bacteria survive antibiotic treatment. When mutated bacteria reproduces and outlives the original bacteria, antibiotic resistance spreads. Horizontal gene transfer is what happens when bacteria acquire genetic mutations from other bacteria.
Antibiotics are just one type of antimicrobial, which are substances that kill microbes like bacteria, fungi, mold, viruses, and other microbes. Antimicrobial stewardship programs are efforts to combat antimicrobial resistance by optimizing the use of antimicrobial medications, including antibiotics. Antibiotics and other antimicrobials are vital and lifesaving, but it is their use—especially overuse and misuse—that contributes most to antimicrobial resistance.1
Antimicrobial stewardship programs aim to reduce the number of unnecessary and inappropriate antimicrobial prescriptions to improve patient outcomes and curb resistance. Because these programs can play a key role in helping prevent and curb disease outbreaks, antimicrobial stewardship should be central to every institution’s emergency preparedness efforts.
The best thing to do about antibiotic resistance is to get informed:
References:
Pneumonia Meets its Match with Molecular Testing from BioFire