SoC01 Antimicrobial Resistance Threat

Eli-Ukende · 2021-09-24T05:51:52+00:00

Being a pharmaceutical science students made me curious about many things right after I was admitted in St Francis University. One day in 2018, a pharmaceutical student association leader stood before us all and gave an announcement that captured my attention. “We will be having Antimicrobial Resistance Holiday campaign in this year. All interested participants are required to register their names in a google form attached in a link shared in your Whats App group.” So I had many questions passing by in my mind right after the announcement was given. “So how will this campaign be held?” was one of the question that popped up in my mind. Well, I was one of the interested participant and without wasting any of my time, I registered myself as it had been directed by that leader. Their after I went straight to read and dig deep down all about Antimicrobial Resistance. So here I am, sharing with you some of important information about it. Please lend me your full attention and you won’t be disappointed. Antimicrobial resistance itself as it is, refers to an act of microbes to evolve mechanisms that protect them from the effects of antimicrobial. Now I want you to understand two things here. Microbes and antimicrobial. Let’s start with microbes. What are microbes? These are microscopic microorganisms which exist in a single celled form or a colony of cells causing a disease or fermentation. Don’t find it difficulty. If your me mention word “bacteria” just know it’s a microbe. Ever heard of viruses? They are microbes. What about fungus? Oops! They are too. So I think we are now together. Right?! Now let me go to Antimicrobial. What exactly do we mean when we speak of these? These are agents that kills microorganisms or stops their growth. They can be grouped according to the microorganism they act against. I am now pretty sure you understand when I say microorganism. Thank you! Here are two familiar examples in which you have heard either of them. Antibiotics are used against Bacteria and Antifungals are used against fungi. Let me go further with these examples. Have you heard of medicines like amoxicillin? What about Ciprofloxacin? If you have then these are antibiotics. And has clotrimazole medicine ever crossed your mind? Then it’s one of antifungals. At least we now have a light concerning these two important terminologies. Before we move any further you must hear this. There are three fundamental mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance. Enzymatic degradation of antibacterial drugs, alteration of bacterial proteins that are antimicrobial targets and changes in membranes permeability to antibiotics. Are they confusing? NO! We shall discuss one after another and you have to trust me that you will understand. An enzyme is produced that degrades the antibiotic, thereby inactivating it. Now I am very sure you are now shooting me with a question so loud. What produce this enzyme? It is indeed a bacterium which produces this enzyme. Now see this. The enzyme produced by this bacterium aims and target a certain structure of a drug molecule. Its action is to cleave this structure. By doing so, this medicine tends to be inactivated and becomes useless. It can’t treat anymore. A disease can’t be cured. A person keeps on being infected. Disease persists. Have you noticed something? Alteration of bacterial proteins that are antimicrobial targets. When these medicine are made and designed, Bacterial proteins are the most common targets. But this mechanism has been widely used by bacteria. Now there are constituents of these proteins. The blocks which build up protein. Now what a bacterium does is substituting one of this block. As you can see when substitution has occurred the antibiotic target is no longer the same. It has been altered. If this happens then Binding affinity of the drug to the target which is bacterial protein, then it confers resistance to the drug. We now move to the third mechanisms. Do you remember it? Changes in membrane permeability to antibiotics. Yes, this is it. See, bacteria as they are, they have a membrane. And this membrane has permeability. When we speak of permeability, we speak of pores. So bacteria have pores. And it is in exact through them antibiotics diffuse in. Now what bacteria do is changing the absolute number of pores. The membrane quality function is reduced and this reduces the diffusion of antibiotics entering the cell. Now this not only reduce diffusion of one group of antibiotics but several families of antibiotics. This is no good at all! I want you to question yourself. What will happen when we lack medicines for treatment? What will happen when they all go resistant? What will happen to our beloved ones? How will the world look like with no medicines to treat at all? Will we go back to that era when we had no antibiotics? Shall we survive? While meditating on these, let me take you through core causes of antimicrobial resistance in case you don’t know. Why should microbes resist antimicrobials? Why do microbes evolve these mechanism? And if it’s not sufficient why do these microbes become successful? Shortly we simply pose a question, what causes antimicrobial Resistance? Let’s go slowly here then. One is Patients not finishing the entire antibiotic cause. Overuse of antibiotics in livestock and fish farming is another. Last to mention but not least is poor hygiene and sanitation. If you are to take an antibiotic as directed by your physician, finish the entire course of treatment even if you are feeling better, or else you risk a relapse. Worse by not finishing you might contribute to the dangerous rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria. How? Some of the bacteria causing infection may survive. These will be the ones with greatest resistance to the antibiotic. As the surviving bacteria reproduce, the resulting infection would not be treatable with the same antibiotic. Worse! If the infection is passed on to someone else, their infection will also be resistant to the antibiotics. This is bad. This is dangerous. Infection will recur within your body. Trust me, It will be more difficult to treat when it does. The danger to the rest of us is that the general population of the infecting bacterium will become more resistant to the antibiotic concerned. Kindly love yourself and your loved ones. Finish your treatment course. Just as humans, farm animals sometimes get sick and require drugs to treat infection. But organisms that causes infections are becoming increasingly resistant to the available drugs. Antimicrobial resistance increases the more a drug is used, and when it is used inappropriately. Using antibiotics in animals may raise the risk of transmitting drug resistance bacteria to humans either by direct infection or by transferring resistance genes from agriculture into human pathogens. These antibiotics used on farms can spill over the surrounding environment, for instance through water run-off and slurry with the potential to create resistance to the drugs across a wide area. Kindly consult a veterinarian before using antibiotics to animals. Save both the present and the future where your generation shall live. As I said last but not least is Poor hygiene and sanitation. This leads to spread of infectious diseases which in turn leads to increased use of antibiotics. Reducing the number of these infections by washing hands frequently helps prevent the overuse of antibiotics. Antibiotic resistant bacteria are spreading at an alarming rate and some bacterial infections may once again be untreatable. Extremely high concentrations of antibiotics are found in waterways nearby antibiotic manufacturing sites. Antibiotics and resistant bacteria have been detected in surface, grounds and drinking water and resistance genes are enriched in river sediments close to wastewater treatment plants. Currently drug manufacturing facilities, animal and aquaculture farms, hospitals and municipalities pollute water systems with antibiotic residues and resistant bacteria. Let’s all stop reduce release of antibiotic and resistant bacteria into the environment. It’s you and I. Be an ambassador today. Educate without cease. After I had read all these about antimicrobial resistance, I drew one conclusion. Bacteria not humans or animals become antibiotic resistant. They may infect humans and animals and the infections they cause are harder t treat than those caused by non-resistant bacteria. You will agree with me that Antimicrobial resistant leads to higher medical costs, prolonged hospital stays and increased mortality. O! How lamenting this is. With no doubt in my both heart and mind, I chose to be Antimicrobial Resistance Campaign ambassador. I thought of myself. My parents and my future children, I did my campaign with a good spirit and enthusiasm. A poem came into my mind. I learnt it while in Ordinary level secondary education ‘Building the nation’! So Whenever I had come back home from my campaigns I had said to myself. Today I did my share in building the nation. I have shared important information with the audience about Antimicrobial Resistance.

Thread starter Eli-Ukende
Start date Sep 24, 2021

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Eli-Ukende

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Sep 24, 2021

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