Why Drug Resistant Superbugs Are the Greatest Threat to Modern Medicine

Why Drug Resistant Superbugs Are the Greatest Threat to Modern Medicine

Antimicrobial Resistance: The Silent Threat That Could Take Humanity Back to the Pre-Penicillin Era  With the world's focus on new infectious diseases such as respiratory viruses or mutations, another, more silent but no less dangerous threat is accumulating: antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Recent statistics show that millions of people lose their lives annually from simple bacterial infections that have become untreatable because antibiotics have lost their effectiveness. If this trend continues without radical intervention, we face the very real possibility of returning to the pre-penicillin era, where minor cuts or routine surgeries could be fatal. Root Causes: A Double Failure in Use and Development Medical and economic analysis of this phenomenon attributes it to a double failure: Misuse: Over-prescribing antibiotics for viral infections (such as influenza) or failing to complete the full course of treatment contributes to bacteria developing resistance mechanisms. Even more dang…