Overview of Antibiotic Resistance

Antibiotics', refers only to antimicrobials produced biologically by microorganisms that inhibit or kill other microorganisms, such as penicillin produced by the Penicillium fungus. Antibiotics are often used after a medical treatment, as well as an important addition to the treatment of patients with cancer. Thus, antibiotics are essential to saving individuals from infection. Antibiotic resistance is a global public health threat Antibiotic resistance, which is implicated in elevated morbidity and mortality rates as well as in the increased treatment costs, is considered to be one of the major global public health threats and the magnitude of the problem recently prompted a number of international and national bodies to take actions to protect the public. The fastest emergence of resistant bacteria is rising worldwide, endangering the efficacy of antibiotics, which have transformed medicine and saved millions of lives. When the antibiotic is not intended to kill or inhibit a pathogen, then the term is equivalent to dosage failure or drug tolerance. Multidrug-resistant is a word which is used when an organism is resistant to more than one drug. Bacteria from clinical and non-clinical settings are becoming rising resistant to conventional antibiotics. However, clinical microbiologists increasingly agree that multidrug resistant (MDR) Gram-negative bacteria pose the greatest risk to public health. Most common and obvious contributing factor of antibiotic resistant pathogens is self-medication and lack of knowledge about antibiotic resistance. The taking of medicines on one's own initiative or on another person's suggestion who is not a certified medical professional is termed as Self-medication. Factor that contributes to the promotion of self-medication in developing countries is the availability of prescription drugs as OTC medicines and can be easily purchased from any pharmaceutical store. Prevention should be the ultimate solution, and vaccines have been suggested as a strategy that can be used to slow down the emergence of drug resistance by decreasing the infection rate and hence antibiotic usage. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as other organizations and experts, recommends various steps that health care practitioners (HCPs) and facilities can pursue to reduce antibiotic resistance, such as adopting an antibiotic stewardship program; improving diagnosis, tracking and prescribing practices; optimizing therapeutic regimens; and preventing infection transmission. Restrictive use of newer and broad-spectrum antibiotics has also been applied and advocated.