Antibiotics were hailed as the end of infections. There efficacy even prompted some in the medical field to say that no new medicines would be needed as we have triumphed over the Bacteria. Well, sadly this is not the case. Overuse where these antibiotics are not effective, like the common cold and incomplete use where the patient feels better so he quits taking them have created these resistant strains. Some Bacterias have evolved and ‘figured out’ how to defeat the anti-biotic by thwarting the very chemical structures that made antibiotics deadly to Bacteria.  Most antibiotics work by disrupting the protein synthesis in the wall of the bacteria causing a physical breach of the cell or by disrupting the DNA replication and causing cell death. Some ‘Super Bugs are unaffected by the antibiotic. It happens like this: there are a thousand bacteria and in comes the antibiotic, 995 of them die. 5 live because they mutated to be unaffected by the medication and live and multiply lending their resistance to the next generation of bacteria. Most of these Multi Drug Resistant strains live in hospitals where they are picked up by the already weakened patient population. Then the medical staff is forced to use a drug of last resort like Vancomycin which is very hard on the body and must be administered by IV.

Best way to prevent the infections? Wash your hands often and try not to end up in the hospital.

Here are two very well written articles form Der Speigel on the above topic. So, wash your hands and have a read.

Part 1 Antibiotics Prove Powerless as Super-Germs Spread

Part 2 The Post Antibiotic Era

…excerpt:

A Foe We Helped Become More Flexible

This large-scale use inevitably leads to the spread of resistant bugs. Indeed, antibiotics offer ideal growth conditions to individual bacteria that have naturally become resistant through a small change in their genetic makeup. Simply put, they benefit from the fact that the antibiotics still kill off their competitors, the non-resistant bacteria.

In many cases, a genetic mutation isn’t even necessary to allow a resistant bacterium to develop. Bacteria can incorporate bits of genetic material from other pathogens. For example, for millions of years, the gene for ESBL resistance lay dormant in the ground, where it was part of a complicated ecosystem of bacteria, penicillin-producing fungi and plant roots. Again and again, the gene was incorporated by human intestinal bacteria — as useless ballast. It was only the large-scale use of antibiotics that provided the ESBL-forming bacteria with the opportunity to proliferate.

Recent studies show that quantities of antibiotics much smaller than previously thought can lead to the development of resistance. In retrospect, the uncontrolled dispensing of antibiotics has proven to be a huge mistake. “In the last 30 years, we have contaminated our entire environment with antibiotics and resistant bacteria,” says Jan Kluytmans, a microbiologist at Amphia Hospital, in the southern Dutch city of Breda. “The question is whether this is even reversible anymore. Perhaps we can prevent only the worst things from happening now.”…

Abandoned by Big Pharma

In reality, the search for new drugs should be getting easier rather than more difficult. In the 1990s, the large pharmaceutical companies spent several million euros searching for weaknesses in the genetic makeup of bacteria. But although the researchers were actually successful, the subsequently developed drugs never made the final leap into clinical use.

“In the end, the risks of antibiotic research were simply too great for companies,” says pharmacist Julia Bandow, who went into academia to continue studying antibiotics after working for the US-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for six years.

But without the large pharmaceutical companies, there can be little hope of progress. After all, testing a drug in human subjects takes years and costs millions. And, as Bandow says of her fellow academics, “We can’t do it alone.”

If pharmaceutical companies refuse to invest in the necessary studies, it’s critical for the government to step in. At the least, politicians could make the development of antibiotics more attractive, for example, by extending the time before patents expire so as to allow companies to earn returns on their investments for longer. But, so far, these are all nothing but ideas.

“At some point in the coming years,” says microbiologist Kluytmans, “there will be a disaster involving resistant pathogens with many casualties. Only then will something change.”