Even Routine Operations Could Turn Deadly Due to Drug-Resistant Bacteria

Health experts have warned that the rise of drug-resistant bacteria could turn even the most routine operations into deadly ones by the end of this century.

Writing in their report, published in The Lancet, the experts warned that the superbugs could destroy the medical advances achieved over the past 100 years in making surgeries as safe as possible. The latest warning comes even as recent studies have found that a rising number of bacteria have been growing resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics, making even a simple infection or a routine surgery, such as hip replacement, seem like a life-threatening one.

The experts added that pharmaceutical companies should be provided better incentives to come up with new antibiotics, stating that no new class of antibiotics has been discovered since 1987 even as new types of infections are being identified almost every year.

"The causes of antibiotic resistance are complex and include human behavior at many levels of society; the consequences affect everybody in the world. Within just a few years, we might be faced with unimaginable setbacks, medically, socially, and economically, unless real and unprecedented global coordinated actions to improve surveillance and transform the way antibiotics are regulated and developed are taken immediately", lead author of the report, Professor Otto Cars, of Uppsala University in Sweden said.

Source: Medindia

Drug Resistance - Antibiotic Resistance

Drug resistance is often a problem in malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, sexually transmitted diseases and hospital acquired diseases. Judicious use of antibiotics can control the problem.