Super Scary Superbugs
Superbugs refer to strains of bacteria that cannot be killed using multiple antibiotics. Per the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), roughly 2 million people get sick from superbugs every year and about 23,000 of them die. An elderly American woman died in the US recently after having contracted an infection while being treated for a thigh bone fracture in India two years ago. Tests showed no drug or combination of drugs available in the US would have cured the infection. But where did these superbugs come from and why are they a problem now? Origin Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the ability of a microbe to resist the effects of medication previously used to treat them. It is a result of misusing antibiotics and evolution at work. Misusing antibiotics is when antibiotics are taken when they aren’t needed or not finished when they are needed. This leads to antibiotics becoming less effective for future bacterial infections and the development of antibiotic resis...