Drug-resistant bacteria create additional cases of illness, longer recuperation times and also unnecessary deaths. In response to the problem, the National Foundation for Infectious Disease (NFID) is sponsoring monitoring in nine central communities throughout the U.S. and has instituted a rule requiring mandatory reporting from state health departments and the Centers for Disease Control when laboratory results indicate that strains of bacteria have become resistant to new drugs.
Drug-resistant Bacteria
Drug-resistant bacteria have the ability to quickly develop immunity to common drugs by self-encoding a new set of modified genes programmed to combat the drug. The bacteria is initially exposed to the drug, but survives, due either to patient ignorance in failing to take the full course of the medication or to the doctor's failure to provide a sufficient dose to destroy the bacteria. Bacteria also learn genetic modifications as a result of drugs used in foods (primarily in beef, poultry and pork production), according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and studies reported in the "New England Journal of Medicine" in 2001 and 2002. Antibiotic medications used improperly for viruses, or for minor infections, allow bacteria another chance to develop resistance, according to the World Health Organization. All of these factors increase the number of drug-resistant strains of bacteria.
MRSA/Staph Infection
Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, known as MRSA, is also commonly called a "Staph infection". While most fatalities occur in older adults who contract HA-MRSA (health care-associated MRSA), community-associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) creates pneumonia as well as skin and tissue infections in healthy young people, according to the Mayo Clinic. MRSA is now resistant to the most commonly prescribed medications. Vancomycin is one of the few drugs currently effective against MRSA.
MRSA Strain USA300-FPR3757
A strain of MRSA, USA300-FPR3757, is the most prominent type of staph infection in the U.S. and has now spread to several countries in Europe, according to the laboratory director of the San Francisco General Hospital, Francoise Perdreau-Remington. Dr. Perdreau-Remington identified the first strain of this staph infection, which bears her initials, FPR. This bacterial strain causes rapid infections including the "flesh-eating bacteria", also known as necrotizing fasciitis. USA300, as it is commonly known, is currently resistant to cipro, mupirocin, clindamycin, tetracycline and erythromycin.
Pneumonia
Drug-resistant pneumonia, known also as Streptococcus pneumoniae, is another common bacterium that has developed a resistance to commonly prescribed drugs, including penicillin. Pneumonia is "an inflammation of your lungs, usually caused by an infection," according to the Mayo Clinic. Streptococcus pneuomiae, also called "community-acquired pneumonia" since it is acquired by bacteria, is the most common type of pneumonia. The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) reports that "between 3 to 35 percent of pneumococcal illness is due to drug-resistant strains." The percentage variation factors with both geographical and seasonal differences.
XDR TB
Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR TB) is a modern variant of an ancient bacterial infection. The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases reported that over 9.2 million new cases of TB were reported in the world in 2006. The World Health Organization (WHO) claims that "one in three people in the world is infected with dormant TB germs (i.e. bacteria)." When unrelated illness weakens a person's immunities, the TB may become active. XDR TB requires treatment using "second-line" drugs that are more costly and have increased likelihood of side effects. This new TB strain has also developed a resistance to many second-line drugs, according to WHO, reducing the number of treatment drugs even further.
