Superbugs are antibiotic resistant bacteria and fungi that are difficult to control and treat. There has been recent rise in emerging superbugs due to a variety of circumstances including the over-prescription of antibiotics, misuse by the general public and natural evolution of germs. Antibiotic resistant bacteria may be more present in areas that require regular sterilization, such as hospitals and other healthcare facilities. There are many steps that can help reduce the use of antibiotics including only taking them when necessary, using the shortest effective treatment and NOT using antibiotics for VIRAL infections. The CDC released a report outlining the superbugs impending serious threats, ranked by risk including the highest risk germs, germs that can pose serious threats to health and often have drug-resistant versions, and a watch list of pathogens that have the potential to become resistant.
If we lose the ability to use all antibiotics, the risk of disease and death from previously treatable germs will sky-rocket and there is no hope for protecting the young, old, or immunocompromised. However, there may still be hope for the future. Optimistically, the first 2-5 products out of the 252 being developed in the pre-clinical pipeline may become available in the next 10 years. Even more hopefully, we leave the worlds problems up the the brightest. Using a machine-learning algorithm that screens more that a hundred million chemical compounds in a matter of days MIT researchers have identified a powerful new antibiotic compound. This new compound eliminated many of the most problematic disease-causing bacteria, some strains resistant to all known antibiotics. It also cleared infections in 2 different mice.
There are two reason as to why the general public is missing antibiotics. The first: they are expensive and with a lack of universal healthcare, depending on insurance companies (or lack of) they may be unaffordable resulting in the public seeking antibiotics from their friends, neighbors, etc. Also, they are misinformed on what the effects of not taking a full course of antibiotics are resulting in them stopping dosage too early and saving the extras. So, conceptually, this is an easy fix. Have the US government supply citizens with universal healthcare offering everyone the opportunity to receive medical care without personal cost (i.e. exactly what Bernie Sanders wants to do) and ensure that when prescribing antibiotics, healthcare professionals are sure that the illness can be treated with them but also outline the effects of not taking the full course, on schedule.
jill and micro 