Why Is It Important To Stop Antibiotic Resistance To Antibiotics?

After the discovery of antibiotics in the early to middle 1900s, many people, including scientists, marveled at the thought of eradicating diseases that tortured human life for centuries. Recently, however, the widespread and inappropriate use of antibiotics has led to antibiotic resistance all over the world, becoming a very serious problem in the treating of diseases. Antibiotic resistance occurs over time when bacteria become resistant to antibiotics because the bacteria strains adapt quickly and protect themselves from the antibiotic. The antibiotic loses its ability to terminate the growth of bacteria, leaving people who suffer from infections with fewer options for recovery. If large numbers of bacteria are resistant to antibiotics, …show more content…
These resistant bacteria will breed and produce a colony of bacteria that are immune to that particular antibiotic. This typically happens in a hospital because patients with such a weak immune system are already very sick. These resistant bacteria can be spread through contamination on hands, medical equipment, or even in the air. Eventually, they can infect someone else in the hospital and using the same antibiotic on him/her won't work. If there's no other effective antibiotic for this bacteria, the bacteria can kill him/her or make that individual very sick and there's no way to stop it. The practice of self-medication, the availability of illegal drugs, and the unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics have increased antibiotic resistance in the continually developing world. Infections picked up in hospitals and nursing homes are a major source of illness and death. In addition, antibiotics are called "societal drugs" because antibiotic resistance can pass from bacterium to bacterium, so resistant bacterial infections can pass from person to person. Therefore, antibiotic use and its resistance can affect an entire