Penicillin was considered a medical miracle. It became famous during the Second World War because it quickly eliminated the biggest wartime killer, the infected wounds. It is the product of the soil mold known as Penicillium. It crippled many types of disease-causing bacteria. Four years after its mass-production in 1943, microbes began to appear that could resist it.
Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterium which is considered harmless for the human body although it can cause diseases such as pneumonia or toxic shock syndrome. This happens when it overgrows or produces a toxin. To its credit, Staphylococcus aureus is known as the first bug to battle penicillin. Another type of penicillin-resistant pneumonia occurred in a remote place in Papua New Guinea. It is referred to as pneumococcus and is caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae. In Southeast Asia, some American military personnel acquired another strain of penicillin resistant bacteria known as gonorrhea. When the soldiers came home, they brought along the new strain of gonorrhea with them. A hospital acquired infection of the intestine which is caused by Enterococcus faecium bacterium is likewise resistant to penicillin.
Antibiotic resistance spreads fast. Today, statistics revealed that 6.6 percent of pneumococcus strains are resistant as reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
It was perceived that the bacterial infection problem was eradicated; hence drug companies did not work on new cures. Instead, they focus on other infections like viral infection. However there was a rise in the resistance to commonly used antibiotics. This may be due to the overuse of the antibiotics. It has come to a point that there is no cure available for some infections. Studies show that there are identified bacteria in patient samples that are resistant to currently available antibiotics. Technically, the antibiotic drug does not cause the resistance. It simply creates an environment where the existing strain can develop. It was observed that more and more organisms develop resistance to more and more drugs. Infections that are drug resistant are commonly associated with complications as well as increase the risk of death.
The article stressed that resistance to antibiotics results from gene action. Bacterial genetic material or DNA may mutate spontaneously as shown by starburst in cases of spontaneous DNA mutation. This is how drug resistant tuberculosis happens. In microbial sex transformation, on bacterium may take up the DNA from another bacterium. The alarming case however is resistance from plasmid which is a small circle of DNA that has the capacity to transfer from one type bacterium to another causing different resistance.
The resistance to bacterial antibiotic resistance is considered a natural phenomenon. Societal factors also add to the problem and these factors include increased infection transmission, coupled with inappropriate antibiotic use. It should be noted that the rise in reported infections are varied. Paradoxically, the advances in medicine made more prone to infections. It is noteworthy to mention that patients undergoing chemotherapy and also transplant recipients who are taking medications to contain their immune function are at greater risk of infection. Original article