Communicable diseases
Liam J. Donaldson, Paul D. Rutter in Donaldsons' Essential Public Health, 2017
So why is antimicrobial resistance becoming so common? The reasons are multiple. They have to do with the widespread use of antimicrobial agents in patient care, in farming, in agriculture and in aquaculture. The World Health Organization estimates that antibiotics are used in greater quantities in food-producing animals than in medical practice. The purpose of using them in animals is to prevent disease and promote growth. This is misuse if the drugs are not given to treat individual sick animals but mass administered to many animals. Many of the same drugs are used to treat human disease, and many of the organisms that infect animals infect people as well. Antibiotics are also used in fish farming and in agricultural spraying – of fruit trees, for example.
Pneumonia
Thomas T. Yoshikawa, Shobita Rajagopalan in Antibiotic Therapy for Geriatric Patients, 2005
While treating pneumonia with antibiotics in older people, recurrent or continued silent aspiration prolongs pneumonia and may lead to superinfection with resistant pathogens. Kanda et al. (10) studied the combination treatment of amantadine and/or ACE inhibitors with antibiotics for patients aged >65 years, who had a previous history of stroke and were admitted with CAP. The patients in the intervention group had a significantly shorter duration of using antibiotics (approximately half), and hospitalization (approximately two-thirds), and lower medical costs (approximately two-thirds), than their counterparts. Infections with MRSA and hospital deaths were significantly lower in the intervention group compared with the control group (Table 2). Reducing the duration of antimicrobial treatment by these pharmacological treatments is a potentially important strategy for preventing antimicrobial resistance.
Spices as Eco-friendly Microbicides: From Kitchen to Clinic
Mahendra Rai, Chistiane M. Feitosa in Eco-Friendly Biobased Products Used in Microbial Diseases, 2022
Plants produce a large number of secondary metabolites that shows inhibitory effects on pathogenic microbes. Some of these are used as drugs, flavors, fragrances, insecticides and dyes, and thus have a great economic value. Major groups of plant secondary metabolites comprise terpenes, phenolic compounds, flavonoids and alkaloids. Antimicrobial agents used for fighting infectious diseases are currently becoming ineffective and its misuse and overuse leads to the development of antimicrobial resistance. Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis alone is responsible for 230,000 deaths per annum globally. Presently problems of antimicrobial resistance are becoming more complex and serious. Plant derived antimicrobials particularly plant secondary metabolites either in purified form or plant part preparation as crude extract appears to be a promising tool to combat pathogenic microbes.
Steps to address anti-microbial drug resistance in today’s drug discovery
Published in Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery, 2019
Antimicrobial resistance is an unavoidable consequence of the use of antimicrobials. Resistance to new agents has generally arisen within 10 years of their first clinical use. The selective pressure during treatment cannot be avoided, so that it seems inevitable that any one drug will ultimately fail. Antibiotic stewardship can help to slowdown the emergence of resistance and its spread. While antibiotic resistance is genetically determined and heritable, the phenomenon of antibiotic tolerance, in which susceptible organisms survive in the presence of an antibiotic, is common among bacterial species. Tolerance can often lead to the emergence of resistance, as it provides for cycles of growth during which genetic mutations occur. Eradicating tolerant or persistent populations during treatment would slowdown the emergence of resistance and shorten therapy. The challenge of targeting tolerant populations is that they often demonstrate tolerance to all antimicrobials. However, recent advances in understanding tolerance have identified new targets [9]. Targeting organisms in different physiological states, e.g. in biofilms, and targeting virulence pathways such as quorum sensing are areas which have yet to be fully explored.
Antimicrobial resistance of ocular microbes and the role of antimicrobial peptides
Published in Clinical and Experimental Optometry, 2021
Shyam Sunder Tummanapalli, Mark DP Willcox
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) antimicrobial resistance arises when the micro‐organisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites survive exposure to a medicine that is commonly used to kill them or stop their growth.1 These micro‐organisms are often referred to as superbugs because of this resistance to antimicrobials.1 The increasing prevalence of antimicrobial resistance is one of the largest global public health concerns of the 21st century. Antibiotic resistance contributes to the increased cost of health care, and morbidity and mortality rates of patients.2 Approximately 700,000 deaths each year are due to antimicrobial‐resistant microbes, and this number is projected to reach 10 million deaths with economic losses of US$100 trillion annually by 2050.3
Omics of antimicrobials and antimicrobial resistance
Published in Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery, 2019
Vladislav M. Chernov, Olga A. Chernova, Alexey A. Mouzykantov, Leonid L. Lopukhov, Rustam I. Aminov
Genetic mutations and horizontal transfer of antimicrobial resistance genes are the main routes for the development of clinically relevant antimicrobial resistance. Horizontal transfer is much more prevalent and happens mainly via the acquisition of the corresponding resistance genes from environmental and microbiome reservoirs [2,3]. Further selection by anthropogenic factors can significantly influence the rate of this transfer [4,5]. The development of antimicrobial resistance in microorganisms is just a question of time, because of their enormous metabolic diversity and evolutionary plasticity. The search for new antimicrobials in the ‘arms’ race against microorganisms is, therefore, doomed to be an everlasting process. The problem of antimicrobial resistance cannot be solved once and for all, but better strategies could be developed to handle the problem as efficiently and safely as possible. These strategies should be based on a detailed knowledge of how antimicrobial resistance develops, and on identification of critical checkpoints where preventive measures could be imposed to stop, or at least slowdown, the process.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Antibiotic
- Antifungal
- Antiviral Drug
- Bacteria
- Horizontal Gene Transfer
- Mutation
- Virus
- Antimicrobial
- Antiprotozoal
- Multiple Drug Resistance