Why does this happen? Antibiotics are taken because the patient has self-administered an overdose of antibiotics or because of an erroneous medical prescription. This has resulted in bacteria that are now resistant to the drug.
Álvaro Camero Garza, an infectious disease specialist, explained that if this happens, the situation becomes very complicated because they have to take drugs that are too potent and have side effects.
“We have almost no weapons against the course of infection in patients infected with multidrug-resistant microorganisms,” said the head of the hospital’s epidemiological surveillance department.
“There are very few drugs available to us. Sometimes we need to take a combination of treatments, or use what we call broad-spectrum antibiotics.”
He added that when antibiotics are not well-instructed, bacteria can become multidrug-resistant as they learn to block the drugs’ attack and mutate.
2. It only fights bacteria
What are antibiotics?
“It’s a drug that targets bacteria,” Camero Garza said. “It only works on bacteria, it doesn’t work on viruses or parasites, it only works against bacteria.”
In order to let the public understand the impact of wrong medication, the World Health Organization will hold the World Antibiotic Use Awareness Week from November 18 to 24, 2020.
Infectionologists cite an example to illustrate the magnitude of the problem: 80% of respiratory infections are caused by viruses, which means antibiotics are not needed, but in many cases wrong medical indications exist.
In other cases, people self-medicate or insist on antibiotics, despite experts explaining that it is a respiratory infection that lasts five to seven days.
“For the typical course of flu like a viral infection, a sore throat, a cold, we’re using antibiotics that are not well indicated,” Carmelo Garza said.
“In the future, that person has a urine infection and we give them the same drug, even one from another group and another potency, and it doesn’t work anymore.”
Currently, they are faced with the fact that with the onset of winter, influenza virus infections increase and many people use antibiotics.
“A big mistake (doctors) make is saying: ‘It looks like the flu, but I’m going to give you antibiotics,’ when in reality the antibiotics won’t be effective against the virus,” he shared.
three.don’t complicate yourself
How long does it take for bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics?
Experts note that there is no specific time, as it depends on the individual’s sensitivity and type of bacteria.
But he warns that in some cases, resistance emerges within weeks; in others, it takes years.
This isn’t the only complication a person can experience, as overuse of the drug can lead to everything from gastritis to kidney failure.
“There’s also antibiotic-induced liver failure, liver damage, diarrhea. The gut has microbiomes, what used to be called gut flora, and antibiotics kill that gut microbiome,” he said.
“They also cause intestinal lesions, antibiotic-associated diarrhea, colonization with other multidrug-resistant bacteria. It also causes severe drug allergies.”
Urinary tract infection and ventilation-associated pneumonia are among the most difficult diagnoses to treat in a hospital setting due to multidrug-resistant bacteria, explained the infection specialist.
three.Medical ‘weapons’ at risk
What are the most commonly misused antibiotics?
Antibiotics are even considered a fad, the expert said.
A few examples: Previously, penicillin and ampicillin were widely used to treat any sore throat. Once an infection is suspected, another antibiotic called ciprofloxacin is prescribed, he added.
“About 60% of infectious processes are now resistant to ciprofloxacin, so they’re already antibiotics, and it’s not that easy to use them in the first place,” he noted.
The problem is so serious that there is currently a group of broad-spectrum antibiotics called carbapenems, but their overuse has led to bacteria becoming resistant to these drugs.
“Carbapenems are like our most advanced weapons,” the infection scientist emphasized. “They are used to fight multidrug-resistant bacteria. However, now we have Medicinal bacteria.
“Using this group of drugs in the first place to treat infections that may be simpler, or that may respond to less potent antibiotics, has resulted in us already developing resistance.”