Superbugs cause deadly conditions
and illnesses such as sepsis and pneumonia, and the World Health Organization,
W.H.O., is suggesting that a general overuse of antibiotics is leading to these
illnesses being untreatable with antibiotics.
Recently, the W.H.O. warned hospital infectious control professionals
and pharmaceutical scientists about these drug-resistant superbugs that have
come about in recent years.
Superbugs kill nearly 23,000 per
year
An article from The New York
Times dauntingly cites Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, the World Health Organization’s
assistant director general as saying, “We are fast running out of treatment
options”. The same article states that
the CDC has assessed that superbugs kill at least 23,000 Americans a year; to
put this into perspective, nearly 38,000 Americans die in car crashes
yearly. Even further, a study done of nearly
fifty American pediatric hospitals discovered that drug-resistant infections in
children have shockingly increased seven times over the past eight years. Six pathogens were reported as being high
priority, and amongst those is MRSA, which poses a huge risk in hospitals and nursing
homes.
An article from the British publication,
The Telegraph, states that if antibiotics lose their ability to be effective,
then common medical procedures such as organ transplants and c-sections could
end up being too risky to undertake. These
procedures that were once thought to be commonplace could end up being
potentially fatal. Also stated is that
the W.H.O. hopes that the information from this priority pathogens list will
encourage governments to create new drugs to combat these superbugs. Some of these rare types of bacteria are
resistant to all known antibiotics, and they typically attack people who have
weakened immune systems; since they are so relentless, the victims of these
types of bacteria usually die.
Protecting yourself and your
family from superbugs
What can you do to protect
yourself against these superbugs? The Center for Disease Control and
Prevention, CDC, advises that people only use antibiotics when necessary so
that they don’t develop a resistance to antibiotics. For example, don’t save leftover antibiotics
to take at a future date, don’t demand antibiotics from your physician when
they say they’re not needed, and don’t take antibiotics prescribed for another
individual.
If you or a loved one have
acquired MRSA or another superbug as a result of being in a health care
facility, please call my office for a free consultation as it is important to
receive care and counsel for this type of condition immediately.
SOURCES
