Antibiotic resistance and "super bacteria": dangerous drugs at risk

Antibiotics used to be a "secret weapon" for humans to fight many diseases. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, due to the discovery of a series of antibiotics, human lifespan was greatly improved. But it was less than a century since it was invented. Because of the increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics, antibiotics have gradually stepped down from the "sacred altar" and even become a major challenge in the field of medical and health care in the future.

In December 2015, the Chinese scientist Tu Yan who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine pointed out in her award-winning speech that in the Greater Mekong Basin of Southeast Asia, the resistance of artemisinin has emerged. As early as 2005, a case in western Cambodia first demonstrated the resistance of malaria to artemisinin. Although this has not led to the complete failure of artemisinin treatment, it did delay artemisinin clearance of P. falciparum in patients. The potent drug that was originally used to treat malaria is at risk of being ineffective.

The effectiveness of antibiotics is generally declining. The reason is that antibiotic-resistant bacteria are rapidly spreading, and resistant bacteria are not killed by certain antibiotics, and then they are no longer restricted and their resistance is even transmitted. Give other kinds of bacteria. Counsellor Hua Jiehong, Minister Counsellor of the European Union Delegation to China, said that due to resistance to antibiotics, some common pathogens are becoming so-called "super bacteria". Once antibiotics fail, our lives will be fraught with danger-minor abrasions can lead to death, and minor ear infections can cause deafness.

The problem of antibiotic resistance has increasingly become a problem that plagues countries around the world. The World Health Organization has published a report saying that by 2050, bacterial resistance to antibiotics will kill 10 million people each year, equivalent to one person losing their life every 3 seconds, and the harm will exceed cancer. At the same time, the most worrying thing is that this harmfulness is increasing year by year. For example, the treatment of E. coli is generally effective with ordinary antibiotics, but in recent years, many countries have reported that some patients even use the most powerful antibiotics to no avail. At present, approximately 25,000 people are killed each year in Europe, causing 1.5 billion euros in annual medical costs and economic losses in the EU. Globally, about 700,000 people die from various drug-resistant bacteria infections and 230,000 each year. The newborn died as a result.

However, the development of new drugs for the development of resistance to antibiotics is difficult to keep up with the speed of resistance development. A report released by the World Health Organization in September 2017 pointed out that the current research and development of new antibiotics is seriously insufficient to meet the growing threat of antibiotic resistance. The report warns that antibiotics worldwide are on the verge of depletion. This report believes that the problem of antibiotic resistance has seriously jeopardized the progress of modern medicine. At present, there is an urgent need to increase investment in research and development of antibiotic resistance infections, otherwise the world will be forced to return to minor surgery caused by common infections. The age of death.

WHO emphasizes that pharmaceutical companies and researchers must immediately focus on new antibiotics that can treat some serious infections that can cause patients to die within a few days. Most drugs that are currently in clinical stages repair existing antibiotic types, which are only short-term solutions. For antibiotic-resistant infections identified by WHO as the greatest health threat, including drug-resistant tuberculosis, which kills approximately 250,000 people each year, there are few potential effective treatment options. For more than 70 years, there are only two treatment-resistant drugs. New antibiotics for TB enter the market. If tuberculosis is to end, more than $ 800 million is urgently needed worldwide each year to study new anti-TB drugs.

In addition, the abuse of antibiotics is also an important reason for the accelerated emergence of antibiotic resistance. Data from a research institution in the United States show that worldwide antibiotic consumption increased by 65% ​​from 2000 to 2015. Although antibiotics are a potent treatment for certain diseases, over-reliance on antibiotics can only be counterproductive. Compared with the development and investment of new antibiotics, the public should learn to use various antibiotics scientifically and cautiously as soon as possible, otherwise we may die from a common infection in the future, instead of cancer, AIDS and other malignant diseases that people fear today. (Reporter Li Zengye)