Biology Faculty Articles
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-26-2019
Publication Title
Annals of Microbiology and Research
Keywords
Antibiotics, Overuse, Viral infection, Bacterial infection, Broad-spectrum agents, Resistance
ISSN
2642-4533
Volume
3
Issue/No.
1
First Page
93
Last Page
99
Abstract
Antibiotic usage has become very widespread, as they are used to treat so many infectious diseases today. Antimicrobial agents exert their actions via different mechanisms including blockage of cell wall synthesis, interference of protein and/or nucleic acid synthesis, interruption of cell membrane structure, and inhibition of a metabolic pathway. The treatment of bacterial infections with antimicrobial agents has become more difficult due to the capability of bacteria to develop resistance to antibiotics. Erroneous diagnosing, misconceptions, and improper physician-patient dynamics have led to overuse of antibiotics and the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria. Bacterial colonies have been shown to confer advantageous genetic information with ease, which is cause for concern. This, in turn, leads to a heightened urgency to create new forms of treatment that are effective against a greater proportion of a given bacterial colony. Effective ways of decreasing resistance include better diagnostic techniques, proper education and assessments, optimization of antibiotics usage, drug synergism, vaccine implementation, global efforts to combat resistance, and development of new antimicrobial agents.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
NSUWorks Citation
Saleem, Mir; Brett Deters; Adam de la Bastide; and Martha Korzen. 2019. "Antibiotics Overuse and Bacterial Resistance." Annals of Microbiology and Research 3, (1): 93-99. doi:10.36959/958/573.
DOI
10.36959/958/573
Comments
©2019 Saleem M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.