What should we worry about next – Super Bugs?

This is the second story in a series I plan to write about possible catastrophes that are very real and sneaking up on us and we are failing to take control of them. 

Imagine this scenario:  your child was playing in the park four days ago and he fell and cut himself.  You came home and washed the cut, maybe put some antibiotic ointment, put a band aid and he felt all better and went back out to play.  It is now Saturday morning and he is burning up with a fever and his cut looks red and the redness has expanded beyond the injured area, it’s infected.  You give him some baby Motrin and his fever goes down for a few hours but goes back up again as soon as the effect of the fever reducer is over. 

Since his doctor’s office is closed on Saturday and you don’t think it is important enough for a hospital emergency room, you take him the local walk in clinic, which is open 24/7 to see if you can get a prescription for an antibiotic.  The doctor at the walk in clinic sees him, assesses the infection, asks you a few questions about his being allergic to certain medicines and prescribes an antibiotic, probably amoxicillin.

You come back home, give him a fever reducer, and begin his regimen of his antibiotic.  Two days go by, his infection is getting worse – his whole leg is red and there is puss in the original area of his cut.  You call the pediatrician but they are booked up for several weeks.  You decide to take her to the hospital emergency because the child is now delirious and the fever is over 105. 

You rush into the emergency room and you are taken immediately because of the child’s condition.  The primary objective of the doctors is to find out the type of infection and to reduce the fever.  They put the child in an ice bath in an effort to bring down the fever.  Later the child, after the doctor’s diagnosis is moved to the intensive care unit where the child is continued to be treated with other antibiotics.

Two days go by and the doctors talk to you about administering a drug of “last resort” most likely Vancomycin, because the child is not responding to any other antibiotic.  A day of treatment goes by and there seems to be no improvement.

Dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria and other pathogens have now emerged in every part of the world and the scenario above can be taking place today in any one of 114 countries where antibiotic resistance bacteria has been identified.  Far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, the scenario above is a very real possibility for the 21st century where we have come to a point where common infections and minor injuries can kill.

All we have to do is open the newspapers and we can see stories where antibiotics to treat a common intestinal bacteria that can cause life-threatening infections in intensive care unit patients and newborns no longer work in more than half of patients in some countries.  Drugs that are used to treat urinary tract infections have also become ineffective in many parts of the world.  The campaigns to limit the spread of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and malaria are under threat due to increasing bacterial resistance.

A story by Dina Fine Maron  in Scientific American “Antibiotic Resistance Is Now Rife across the Entire Globe”  indicates that a first-ever World Health Organization assessment of the growing problem calls for rapid changes to avoid the misery and deaths of a potential "post-antibiotic era."  Imagine returning to medical care before the early 1940s prior to penicillin?   

According to the World Health Organization, germs resistant to antibiotics are now a major global health threat, causing near-untreatable cases of diarrhea, sepsis, pneumonia and gonorrhea. Overuse and misuse of antibiotics are to blame.  We are overusing antibiotics and in the process creating drug-resistant bacteria. The antibacterial drugs don’t kill all the bad bugs, and the ones that survive can multiply and spread their drug-resistant genes. This happens especially when people take the wrong antibiotic, and worst of all is when people don’t take a full course of antibiotics leaving a half-treated population of bacteria in their bodies to grow into super bugs.  So think about not asking for that ZPACK or better yet, give yourself at least a few days to see if you get better on your own, it is much better for your immune system if you can fight off whatever ails you instead of relying on an antibiotic.

The other source of drug-resisting bugs are farms.  Antibiotics are not only used to treat disease in agriculture, but as a feed additive to promote faster growth. This accounts for 80% of all antibiotic use in the US.   The use of antibiotics in animals who are not even ill kills off weaker bacteria and promotes the growth of antibiotic resistance super bacteria, which has been found in high rates among industrial farm workers and their families and also found in high rates retail meats.

People in our time don’t know the horrors of living in a world with no antibiotics.  That's why in the past half of the children in a family would die, that was a fact of life; you would catch a simple cold that would turn into a lung infection and your life was immediately on danger.  A cut in your leg and your chances for survival were 50/50.

So be afraid, be very afraid!