Antibiotics have been observed to be unable to adapt to bacteria that has acquired resistant genes. As a result, new types of antibiotics must be created constantly but eventually those will become nonfunctional as well. On the other hand, bacteriophages evolve alongside the bacteria they attack due to the manner in which they destroy them. In the event of new bacterial strains, the bacteriophage will adapt to deal with that issue. (Pirisi, 2000) This rules out the hindrance caused by the development of resistance and the polyclonal nature of infectious diseases. With more research and trials, bacteriophage therapy has the capabilities to surpass antibiotics as a more efficient and reliable form of treatment for bacterial infections.
A Brief History of Bacteriophage Therapy
The history of the discovery of bacteriophages like many things is steeped in controversy over who found it first. Generally, it is accepted that British bacteriologist Ernest Hanbury Hankin was one of the first to identify the virus. In British India and many other ancient civilizations, it was believed that some rivers bore the ability to miraculously heal diseases--notoriously, leprosy. In 1896, Hankin identified antibacterial activity against Vibrio cholerae (cholera) in the Ganges and Jumna rivers. He found through his study of the mysterious substance only that it was antibacterial, was able to pass through thin porcelain filters, was heat labile (meaning it could be changed or destroyed at high temperatures), and was the primary reason that cholera epidemics had been limited in that region. (Adhya & Merril, 2006) Nearly two decades later, in 1915, another British bacteriologist named Frederick Twort also identified bacteriophage in his research. Twort...
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Simple infections are no longer death sentences, however, immunities to these antibiotics are appearing. The use of antibiotics save lives by crippling the ability of bacteria to damage the human body, and antibodies act as a sidekick to the immune system when fighting off life-threatening illnesses. In “The Life of a Peasant”, William Stearns Davis (1922) focuses on what life would be like for the lowest tier of people in a feudalistic state, and he concluded that often in a world without antibiotics, people lose their lives to easily preventable medical conditions, regardless of whether they are a king or a peasant. Antibiotics are used to fight infections that could otherwise prove deadly. In a time before antibiotics, life was much more difficult for all involved. Before antibiotics were used, many died of simple cuts or scratches that later got infected. If action is not taken, superbugs could grow immune to all of the antibiotics we possess. Superbugs are becoming immune to the ways we fight them, which forecasts a world without the ability to fight these superbugs. In the article “Superbugs Causing Infections at a Tertiary Care Hospital and the Return of Pre-Antibiotic Era!” Kalyan Rajkumar (2016), associate professor of microbiology at King George 's Medical University, as well as his research team, discusses the prevalence of a strain of E. coli that is mostly immune to the majority of current
For long before the 1918 pandemic, doctors had been trying to isolate the microorganism that causes influenza. In 1892, one man, Dr. Friedrich Johann Pfeiffer, believed he had the answer. His discovery, Pfeiffer’s bacillus or Hemophilus influenzae, was widely known as the culprit. However, during the first wave of the 1918 pandemic, doctors lost faith in Pfeiffer’s bacillus. They searched for it in patients, but rarely found it. In the second wave, the bacterium was present in many, but by no means all, cases of Spanish flu. If it was the cause of influenza, it should have been present in all cases (Kolata, Flu 64-65).
In its first global report of antimicrobial resistance, released Wednesday, the WHO says “a post-antibiotic era – in which common infections and minor injuries can kill – is a very real possibility for the 21st century…this serious threat is no longer a prediction for the future, it is happening right no in every region of the world and has the potential to affect anyone, of any age, in any country. Antibiotic resistance…is not a major threat to public health.”
At no time was a search for the cure for influenza more frantic than after the devastating effects of the pandemic of 1918. The pandemic killed somewhere between twenty and a hundred million people, making it twenty five times more deadly than the ordinary cough and sneeze flu. The symptoms of this flu were like something straight out of a horror movie: the victim’s facial complexion changed to a dark, brownish purple, the feet turned black, and they began to cough up blood. Eventually, death was caused, literally by drowning, when the victim’s lungs filled with their own blood. The first scientist to claim to solve the enigma of influenza was Dr. Friedrich Johann Pfeiffer. He isolated a bacterium he named Hemophilus influenzae from the respiratory tract of those who had the flu in the pandemic of 1890. He was believed to be correct in his discovery until the pandemic of 1918, when scientists searched the respiratory tracts of influenza victims and only sometimes found his bacterium. Robert E. Shope and his mentor Paul Lewis were the next to attempt to crack the code of influenza. They chose to study the disease in pigs, a controversial choice because many people believed that the swine influenza pigs were contracting was not the same as the human flu. The first experiment they ran was ba...
“The World Health Organization projects that as drug effectiveness decreases and antibiotic resistance increases, public education becomes more and more crucial” (476) Antibiotics were discovered in 1940 and since have been abused and misused. Between bad practices and lack of proper education antibiotic resistance has been allowed to occur. The only way to combat bacterial infections is with strong patient education and following the correct schedule in taking antibiotics.
Bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics is a major problem not only for the United States, but worldwide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2012) the cause is related to “widespread overuse, as well as inappropriate use, of antibiotics that is fueling antibiotic resistance”. According to World Health Organization (2013) resistance is a global concern for several reasons; it impedes the control of infectious diseases, increases healthcare costs, and the death rate for patients with resistant bacterial infections is twice of those with non-resistant bacterial infections.
As the days went by and the number of deaths began to increase, the Board of Health in London began to improve people’s living conditions by creating the indoor restroom, This, however, caused more problems for the people of London, due to the lack of a proper sewage system, “London needed a citywide sewage system that could remove waste products from houses in a reliable and sanitary fashion,...,The problem was one of jurisdiction, not execution,”(Page 117). London didn’t have a place where the sewers could lead off to which keep the disease spreading when people used the restroom. After months of battling the type of disease London was faced with, Mr. Snow convinced the Board of Health to remove the water pump that was on Board Street. By getting rid of this pump, Mr. Snow helped stop major outbreaks from recurring, “The removal of the pump handle was a historical turning point, and not because it marked the end of London’s most explosive epidemic,..., It marks a turning point in the battle between urban man and Vibrio cholera, because for the first time a public institution had made an informed intervention into a cholera outbreak based on a scientifically sound theory of the disease.”(Page 162- 163). This marked the end of the London epidemic and how the world of science
Bacterial resistance to antibiotics has presented many problems in our society, including an increased chance of fatality due to infections that could have otherwise been treated with success. Antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections, but overexposure to these drugs give the bacteria more opportunities to mutate, forming resistant strains. Through natural selection, those few mutated bacteria are able to survive treatments of antibiotics and then pass on their genes to other bacterial cells through lateral gene transfer (Zhaxybayeva, 2011). Once resistance builds in one patient, it is possible for the strain to be transmitted to others through improper hygiene and failure to isolate patients in hospitals.
Over the years humans have tried every possibility to overcome the health problems, spread of epidemics and infections, disease control and have worked towards a healthy society free of disease and health problems. They have succeeded to a great extent. The book “Good germs, bad germs” describes that though the life expectancy is now far more as it was in previous eras. Epidemic problems and infectious diseases are now getting lesser and lesser and humans are being treated successfully. The hygienic conditions have also been improved so as to ensure least growth of microbes, germs, parasites and bacteria. Antibiotics have been invented to address diseases and infections caused by bacteria and viruses. With all these substantial efforts the biologists, physicians and scientists have triggered another epidemic which is even more severe. They have killed those microbes and bacterial species which were human friendly and as a result of either their disruption or mutation, pathogenic bacteria have even become more active and resistant to treatments. This has led to increased ineffectiveness of antibiotic drugs, low immunity and various infections and inflammatory diseases. The chlorinated water for drinking and food processing along with excessive hygienic conditions indicates our fight against these bacteria and germs. Further, these antibiotics are even given to the livestock which becomes our food and as result many of their resistant germs end up in our digestive tract and other organs. Thus, the war against microbes through excessive cleanliness and use of antibiotics has resulted in antibiotic resistance among humans, which has become one of the prominent problems of medical science
In the last decade, the number of prescriptions for antibiotics has increases. Even though, antibiotics are helpful, an excess amount of antibiotics can be dangerous. Quite often antibiotics are wrongly prescribed to cure viruses when they are meant to target bacteria. Antibiotics are a type of medicine that is prone to kill microorganisms, or bacteria. By examining the PBS documentary Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria and the article “U.S. government taps GlaxoSmithKline for New Antibiotics” by Ben Hirschler as well as a few other articles can help depict the problem that is of doctors prescribing antibiotics wrongly or excessively, which can led to becoming harmful to the body.
A remarkable breakthrough in medicine occurred in the late 1800s through the work of Louis Pasteur. Pasteur's experiments showed that bacteria reproduce like other living things and travel from place to place. Using the results of his findings, he developed pasteurization, which is the process of heating liquids to kill bacteria and prevent fermentation. He also produced an anthrax vaccine as well as a way to weaken the rabies virus. After studying Pasteur's work, Joseph Lister developed antisepsis, which is the process of killing disease-causing germs. In 1865 before an operation, he cleansed a leg wound first with carbolic acid, and performed the surgery with sterilized (by heat) instruments. The wound healed, and the patient survived. Prior to surgery, the patient would've needed an amputation. However, by incorporating these antiseptic procedures in all of his surgeries, he decreased postoperative deaths. The use of antiseptics eventually helped reduce bacterial infection not only in surgery but also in childbirth and in the treatment of battle wounds. Another man that made discoveries that reinforced those of Pasteur's was Robert Koch. Robert Koch isolated the germ that causes tuberculosis, identified the germ responsible for Asiatic cholera, and developed sanitary measures to prevent disease. (1)
Bibliography:.. References 1) Lewis, Ricki, “The Rise of Antibiotic-Resistant Infections”. Food and Drug Administration Publications. http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/795_antibio.html September, 1995. 2) Levy, S., Bittner, M., and Salyers, A. Ask the Experts about “Ask the Experts”.
Exposure to antimicrobials fundamentally alters microbial ecosystems of humans, animals and the environment, which may lead to the development of antimicrobial resistance.