“Superbugs” are antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. These superbugs are fairly new to the medical world – it is only within the last few decades that the real dangers of these bugs have become apparent. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), these multiple-drug resistant bacteria have infected two million nationwide and killed about 23,000. Drug-resistant gonorrhea, tuberculosis and staph infections now exist.
“Bacterial infections that were treatable for decades are no longer responding to antibiotics, even the newer ones,” says Dr. Dennis Dixon, a U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) expert in bacterial and fungal diseases. Scientists are trying to get ahead of the ever-growing list of antibiotic-resistant strains but new discoveries are hard to come by.
This resistance to antibiotics by these bacterial strains starts with the overuse of antibiotics in our everyday lives. Antibiotics are the most commonly prescribed drug by physicians. The bugs come in contact with an antibiotic and develop a resistance to it if they are not killed off by it. Thus, a superbug is born.
They can also multiply with this resistance and pass this trait on to the next generations of bacteria. They can also share some of these traits with different bacteria, passing on their antibiotic resistance.
Part of the fault in the overuse of antibiotics is our expectation of drug prescriptions every time we go to the doctor’s for an illness. But if you have the simple flu or cold, antibiotics will do nothing to further along your recovery.
If you are prescribed antibiotics, try and ensure that the drugs are really going to make a difference in your illness, that your sickness is bacterial in nature and not viral. Make sure you take them properly, following the directions to the letter and finish the whole course of meds. This will ensure that the maximum number of bad bacteria have been eliminated and hopefully, that no antibiotic-resistance bugs have survived.