The well-known song lyric “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” in Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)‘ is apparently the life motto for antibiotic resistant bacteria.
What is antibiotic resistant bacteria, and why does it matter to me?
Antibiotic resistant bacteria are described exactly by what their title says: it’s bacteria that will not die when antibiotics are present. It should matter to you as stronger medication would be needed to eradicate a bacterial infection which would have been easily taken care of in the past with a weaker antibiotic.
How does bacteria become drug resistant?
Bacteria. (Photo Source: “Bacteria” by AJC1 on www.flickr.com)
Essentially, what allows bacteria to become resistant to drugs is the random chance of survival, due to having the right type of genes for that specific drug. This is what is known as ‘natural selection’, where a certain organism(s) is adapted to their unfavourable environment, compared to other organisms, not necessarily of the same species, which are not well-adapted. While the environment kills the unadapted organisms, the ones that have survived reproduce and pass on the gene, that allows them to adapt to the environment, to their progeny. These organisms reproduces enough to reestablish a population which is immune to the unfavourable environment. Additionally, bacteria possess the ability to pass genes to other bacteria, which are not their children, via ‘bacterial conjugation‘.
What exactly does tie in with the title?
Antibiotics. (Photo Source: “spills pills pills” by oliver.dodd on www.flickr.com)
The overuse and misuse of antibiotics has been a studied cause for antibiotic resistant bacteria. By overusing antibiotics, the bacteria that are vulnerable to the drug will die, but this will allow other bacteria, different competitors or possibly a different strain that are immune to the drug, to populate within the patient. As a result, the patient will have wiped out the bacteria vulnerable to the medication taken, however, they will have a population of bacteria that are immune it, meaning that there is one less antibiotic that will help you get rid of your resilient infection.
What can be done now?
The World Health Organization has listed some suitable ways to help prevent further outbreaks of antibiotic resistant bacteria and to help control them. Some of their proposed solutions are:
- Never to share leftover antibiotics with others, and not to reuse them
- Use antibiotics when prescribed by certified professionals (since they would know more about how to take the medicine than you)
- Regulate dispensing and disposal of antibiotics
- (For the prescribers) Educate the patients!
– Nathan Yan
