Antibiotic Resistance: Scary Superbugs
Have you ever gone to the doctor and received a prescription for antibiotics? I’m sure they told you to keep taking it until the end, even if you started to feel better sooner. You might be wondering - why is this important? If you feel good now, why should you keep taking the pills? Well if you stop taking them too soon, you might create a monster. Monster bacteria, that is!
If someone has a bacterial infection, there’s a bunch of icky bacteria (not the good kind that helps us with our health!) hanging out in their body making them sick. As bacteria make copies of themselves rapidly, they can quickly evolve survival mechanisms as well. When we take antibiotics, we hope to kill off the harmful bacteria. As the bacteria want to survive, they try to evolve to become resistant to the antibiotics.
To better understand antibiotic resistance, let’s get into how antibiotics work. Antibiotics may target a part of the bacteria like their cell wall or certain organs. The crafty bacteria can block the antibiotics from getting into their cell, change the organ so the antibiotic can’t attack it, or find a way to function without that organ altogether. Furthermore, bacteria can share genes that help each other resist antibiotics. Do you see how this can spell trouble for a patient?
If a patient stops taking their antibiotics too soon, they won’t kill off all the bacteria. Therefore, the bacteria that have been evolving keep evolving into scary superbugs, or antibiotic resistant bacteria. This makes it very difficult to treat the patient. Two prominent examples of superbugs are methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter (MDR-A). MRSA generally causes skin infections or even lung infections. In a nursing home or hospital, it can wreak more severe damage like a bloodstream infection. MRSA is resistant to methicillin, but can be treated with certain antibiotics. A healthcare professional may drain a skin infection to get the bacteria out. MDR-A infections may cause pneumonia, or infections in the bloodstream or urinary tract. Both of these infections sound highly unpleasant, don’t they? The main message here is: if you take antibiotics, follow your doctor’s advice!
