Antibiotics continue to lose the arms race in the war on bacteria, and this year a number of microbes, including the causative agent of pneumonia, have begun to develop resistance to “antibiotics of last resort,” scientists interviewed by the European Center for Disease Prevention said.
“Tackling the growing immunity of microbes to antibiotics is a major public health challenge today. If we do not cope with it, we will return to the days when we could not carry out even the simplest medical operations, and organ transplants, chemotherapy or resuscitation were generally things from science fiction, said Vitenis Andrukaitis, head of the European health and food safety commissions.
According to Andriukaitis, the European Commission is looking very seriously at the problem of developing antibiotic resistance in microbes, and now its experts are developing plans to “slow down” this process.
The problem is that the most common disease-causing bacteria and single-celled creatures develop resistance to the antibiotics used today faster than scientists are finding new molecules that can destroy microorganisms.
For example, statistics from the European Center for the Prevention of the Spread of Disease show that today about a third of the strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae, the causative agent of pneumonia, have become immune to the action of at least one antibiotic, and many of them are resistant to the action of several antibiotics at once.
To make matters worse, about 8% of the strains are capable of carrying antibiotics from the carbapenem and colistin class, which are now considered the "last line of defense" against infection. Accordingly, infection with such a causative agent of pneumonia actually leaves the human immune system alone with the infection, since no antibiotic will work against such "super-bacteria".
In a similar way, the "war" develops with two other common and dangerous microbes - E. coli, which causes blood poisoning and infections of the genitourinary system. On the other hand, the prevalence of "invulnerable" Staphylococcus aureus is gradually declining thanks to the efforts of doctors.
According to scientists, the threat of destruction of antibiotics in this "biowar" should force doctors from all over the world to more scrupulous about the use of antibiotics, and to use them only when it is really necessary. Such events, as doctors emphasize, must be carried out not only in the European Union, but also in all countries of the world, since microbes, unlike humans, do not recognize borders and quickly spread throughout the Earth.
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To promote such goals, the European Center for Disease Prevention is going to hold every 18 November "Antibiotic Day", during which scientists will educate the public about the current situation with antibiotics and share experiences in combating the invulnerability of microbes.