10 reasons YOU should be worried

about antibiotic resistance

Posted by:Diane Ashiru-Oredope, Posted on:18 November 2014 - Categories:Antimicrobial
resistance, Health Protection, Uncategorized

Antibiotics are essential for treating many infections but they’re losing
their effectiveness. Bacteria are fighting back by adapting and finding
ways of surviving the effects of our medicines.

The bugs are smart – they can naturally become resistant to

antibiotics over time but we’re making it worse because of overuse
and misuse of our medications. This is already a risky situation and it
will only get worse if we don’t take urgent action. Here are ten reasons
YOU should be worried.

1. No antibiotics = 1930s style healthcare

If we lose our antibiotics it will be like going back to the 1930s where
infections we now regard as trivial could be fatal. An infected cut could
be life threatening and an illness like pneumonia would again become
a mass killer. Look at the image below and imagine a return to those
primitive days when we had no effective ways to treat infections.

2. There may be no new medicines

No new class of antibiotics has hit the pharmacy shelves for some
time. Even if we discover more medicines simply replacing old
antibiotics with new ones is not the only answer as they could also
become ineffective. Governments and pharmaceutical companies are
considering ways of tackling this situation but for now we may have to
rely on the medicines we have, making it essential we ensure they
remain useful.

3. Green vaginal/penile discharge. Does that worry you?

An unusual discharge down below is not the sort of thing that you
want to leave untreated, but antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea is a
serious, and scary, business. Some have called it the ‘sex superbug’
as gonorrhoea is passed on through unprotected sex or oral sex
leading to symptoms including thick green or yellow discharge from
the vagina or penis and pain when urinating. If it isn't treated it can
lead to serious complications but we are already running out of
antibiotics that can kill the bacteria and fight the infection.
4. Antibiotic resistance is already here.
When we discuss antibiotic resistance we talk about a frightening
future and rightly ask for action to stop the problem from getting
worse. But this doesn't mean it's all just an issue for future
generations. It’s estimated that 25,000 people already die every year
in Europe because of infections resistant to antibiotics and in the USA
the figure is 23,000 people, every year.

5. Cancer chemotherapy and effective antibiotics go hand in

hand
Chemotherapy is an important weapon in the fight against cancer, but
did you know the procedure destroys our white blood cells, which we
need to fight off infection? Without antibiotics chemotherapy will
become increasingly dangerous.

6. Our greatest medical advancements, ruined

Organ transplants are a miracle of modern medicine but we need
antibiotics to help a transplant patient survive, both because the
transplant procedure itself may lead to infection but also because
patients receive drugs that intentionally suppress their immune
system to ensure their body doesn't reject their new organ. This
suppression of the immune system makes a patient more prone to
bacterial infections. If we lose our antibiotics, transplants would
become more risky or even impossible.

7. It is your problem
Sometimes talk of antibiotic resistance being a “global problem” and
“threat to healthcare as we know it” may make it easy to switch off.
Maybe it’s all too big? Maybe something for scientists or politicians to
worry about? Think again, as this problem affects us all directly. For
instance, if you are given antibiotics when you don’t need them you
run the risk of carrying antibiotic resistant bacteria in your gut. If these
bacteria go on to cause an infection, antibiotics may not work when
you really need them.