3. Why is the possibility that all antibiotics may become useless such a serious concern? The superbug that experts have been dreading has just reached the USby Jacinta Bowler, 27 May 2016A type of bacteria that's resistant to the lastantibiotic we have left against superbugs has madeit to the US, and it signals something doctors havebeen dreading for years - the end for antibiotics.The bacterium, a strain of Escherichia coli, wasfound in the urine of a Pennsylvania woman. The strain is resistant to the antibiotic colistin, whichdoctors have been using as an absolute last-resort for bacteria that are extensively drug-resistant.We've talked a lot about the problem with antibiotic resistance before, but in a nutshell, the reasonwhy antibiotics are so important is because the easiest way to destroy bacteria is to douse them inalcohol or high heat, but that's not exactly something you really want to be doing when the bacteriaare inside you. Enter the gentler Plan B: antibiotics.Antibiotics work by attacking a specific mechanism used by bacteria to function, but because bacteriaare able to reproduce so quickly, natural selection has led to superbugs that have altered thismechanism and rendered the antibiotics useless.And we're quickly running out of time to come up with new options - we've had antibiotics for about85 years, and even in the first 10 years of use, bacteria were becoming resistant. In the 75 years sincethen, we haven't managed to create enough antibiotics to outrun the bacterial evolution. And now, theone antibiotic we had left, colistin, is beginning to fail. Bacteria that are resistant to colistin have beenfound before in Italy, China, and the UK, but this is the first time that the resistance has been found inthe US. It's thought the resistance may have originated in Chinese pigs, because colistin has beenused extensively in the pork industry.Colistin itself is a very old drug, and wasn't deemed useful until recently, because at certain doses itcan be toxic to the kidneys. But because it was used so rarely, it meant that bacteria hadn't had achance to build up resistance against it, which is why it's been so helpful against superbugs thatnothing else could wipe out. But, all good things must come to an end, and we could be back atsquare one.While the strain of E. coli that the Pennsylvania woman had been infected with ended up being treatedby other types of antibiotics - which means it isn't resistant to everything, just colistin (yay!) – thatdoesn't mean it isn't dangerous.As well as being able to pass genes on through reproduction, bacteria also have the ability to passgenes on laterally, which means between species or even different classes of bacteria. That means theparticular gene that codes for colistin resistance, mcr-1, could spread to other types of bacteria in theUs that are already extensively resistant to antibiotics.The worst news of all is that the diagnosed woman hadn't left the country in the last five months - soscientists have no idea how she got this resistant strain, and how many people around her might havebeen exposed. "It basically shows us that the end of the road isn't very far away for antibiotics - that we may be in a situation where we have patients in our intensive-care units, or patients getting urinarytract infections for which we do not have antibiotics," said CDC Director Tom Frieden in an interviewwith The Washington Post.Nearly 2 million American a year develop hospital-acquired infections, resulting in 99,000 deaths - themajority of which are caused by antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Without access to working antibiotics,routine surgeries will become dangerous, and a basic infection could be deadly. Unfortunately, thisissue is becoming closer to a reality every day. "The medicine cabinet is empty for some patients,"Frieden said. "It is the end of the road unless we act urgently." Researchers are now trying to findalternatives to antibiotics, such as microbe-killing copper hospital beds, and ancient remedies. Let'sjust hope they manage to come up with some solutions soon.ANTIBIOTICHow Antibiotic Resistance Happens1.Lots of germs.A few are drug resistant.Antibiotics killbacteria causing the illness, bacteria are now allowed toas well as good bacteriaprotecting the body fromThe drug-resistantSome bacteria givetheir drug-resistance toother bacteria, causingmore problems.grow and take over.infection.

ANTIBIOTICS:- They used to treat infections caused by bacteria, so they are anti-bacterial and…

Answered: . Why is the possibility that all…

11th Edition

ISBN:9780134580999

Author:Elaine N. Marieb, Katja N. Hoehn

Publisher:Elaine N. Marieb, Katja N. Hoehn

Chapter1: The Human Body: An Orientation

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 1RQ: The correct sequence of levels forming the structural hierarchy is A. (a) organ, organ system,...