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Written By: Editorial Team | Published : May 23, 2014 4:00 PM IST
In view of the fact that resistance to antibiotics to tackle bacterial infections and antimicrobial drugs is spreading at an alarming rate, experts have called for united global response to deal with the crisis. Growing resistance to antibiotics and other drugs demand a coordinated global response on the same scale as efforts to address climate change, professor Mark Woolhouse of University of Edinburgh and Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust wrote in an article.
Without an international commitment to tackle the issue, the world faces a future in which simple infections that have been treatable for decades become deadly diseases, they warned. According to them, a powerful global organisation similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) should lead an international response to the antibiotic crisis.
'The time has come to stop re-stating the problems of antimicrobial resistance and start taking action,' said Woolhouse. (Read : Potential treatment for deadly bacterial infections discovered)
'We need independent, international leadership on this issue before the massive health gains that have been made since Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin are lost forever,' he added. The growing threat of antimicrobial resistance is similar to that posed by climate change because it is a natural process exacerbated by human activity and the actions of one country can have global ramifications. Yet the international response to this threat - caused by the overuse and misuse of antimicrobial drugs - has been feeble, the authors noted. The comments appeared in the journal Nature. (Read : Can good bacteria be the answer to protection against HIV infection?)
How do bacteria get 'resistant' to antibiotics?
We rely on antibiotics to defend us against common bacterial infections. But a few cells can escape treatment by becoming persisters that allows the infection to come back. Scientists have now made a key discovery in understanding how a subset of bacterial cells escape being killed by many antibiotics. Cells become 'persisters' by entering a state in which they stop replicating and are able to tolerate antibiotics. 'Unlike antibiotic resistance, this tolerant phase is only temporary but it may contribute to the later development of resistance,' said researchers from the MRC Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection at Imperial College London.
They have succeeded in visualising persister cells in infected tissues for the first time, and have identified signals that lead to their formation, said a new study published in the journal Science. The team developed a method for tracking single cells using a fluorescent protein produced by the bacteria. They showed that Salmonella, which causes gastroenteritis and typhoid fever, forms large numbers of non-replicating persisters after being engulfed by immune cells called macrophages. By adopting this non-replicating mode, Salmonella survives antibiotic treatment and lingers in the host, accounting for its ability to cause recurrent infections. Read more about antibiotics...
With inputs from IANS
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