The Superbug

A “superbug” sounds more like a lame version of Spiderman than a radically spreading global health threat. However, regardless of how silly the nickname is, superbugs are not to be taken lightly. Simply put, they are strains of bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotic drugs. Each year in the United States, 2 million people are infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, and roughly 23,000 people die as a direct result of these infections.

The first chink in the armor of the antibiotic era dawned in 1989 with the unparalleled increase in the resistance of enterococci bacteria to the antibiotic vancomycin. Prior to this, there were virtually no strains of vancomycin-resistant enterococci. Alarming to health professionals, enterococci was the leading cause of hospital-acquired infections and vancomycin was often the last effective antibiotic used against this group of bacteria.

In parallel, pneumococci, the leading cause of pneumonia and one of the principal causes of meningitis, middle ear infections, and blood stream infections has also become resistant to a number of antibiotics. By 1992, the CDC indicated that 6.6% of pneumococci strains were resistant to penicillin. At that time, some parts of the United States had resistance rates as high as 20–40%, and these rates have continued to increase.

Despite being aware of this ongoing problem, there is no global or national surveillance system for monitoring antibiotic resistance in humans or animals. Our under preparedness has resulted in part because of the 1969 declaration by the Surgeon General that the United States was going to shift its focus from infectious diseases to more pressing chronic diseases. This also led pharmaceutical companies to swing their focus to developing drugs for chronic diseases rather than continuing to develop antimicrobials.

This endemic problem of antibiotic resistant bacteria can only be solved if we address its leading causes. This topic has been broken down into three different articles that look at these potential causes: the overuse of antibiotics in hospitals, antibiotic use in livestock, and the uptake of antibiotics by plants.

Sources and Citations:

“Antibiotic / Antimicrobial Resistance.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 04 Mar. 2014. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.

Cassell, Gail H. “Emergent Antibiotic Resistance: Health Risks and Economic Impact.” Wiley Online Library. FEMS Immunology & Medical Microbiology, 17 Jan. 2006. Web. 16 Feb. 2015.