U.S. military researchers
said they had identified the first patient in the United States to be infected
with bacteria resistant to an antibiotic that was the last resort against
drug-resistant germs. The patient has recovered, but the case raised the
specter of superbugs that could cause untreatable infections.
The idea of people dying from
infections once easily cured may seem outlandish. But it is happening — killing
about 23,000 people in the United States a year — and experts warn that things
will get worse because bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics faster
than we can make drugs to fight back.
We have ourselves to blame, for overusing
the drugs in people and wasting them on livestock. Now, a dangerous form of
drug resistance has reached the United States, leaving us one step away from
infections that are completely untreatable.
An antibiotic resistance used to be
infectious disease, illness such as tuberculosis and pneumonia. Due to the
overuse of antibiotics, the bugs that were invented to fight started to develop
ways of resisting them.
For years, infectious-disease doctors
have been warning to overuse antibiotics in both people and livestock, unless
needed. They also warned that there will come a day when they will be powerless
against the most ferocious bugs and everything will be back to square one. The
days when people can no longer find cure again.
Source: Seattle Times
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