The Last Days of Antibiotics?

The growing problem of bacteria strains that are resistant to all but a handful of antibiotics, combined with a decline in development of new drugs to thwart the bugs, is creating the conditions for a perfect storm that could leave us vulnerable and unprotected from deadly germs.

A retirement-age woman checks into the hospital for heart surgery. After the operation, she contracts infections caused by two separate strains of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. Instead of being in and out of the hospital in a few days, she winds up in the intensive care unit for more than two weeks as health care workers struggle to fight off her infections. The woman eventually recovers, but the infections have taken their toll. She has to undergo months of rehabilitation to get back to normal. Instead of the $12,000 the heart surgery should’ve cost, her care totals more than $30,000. And she nearly died.

The above, which was a real case, illustrates just how devastating and costly antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria can be. These so-called superbugs—impervious to all but the strongest antibiotics—concern experts because they are on the rise and pose a threat to all of us. They can cause serious infections of the skin, bloodstream, lungs, and surgical incision sites; infections that can lead to grave complications, such as nerve damage, limb amputation and even death.

“Antimicrobial resistance is a big, big issue,” says Dr. Edward Septimus, who was involved in treating the woman and is a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s (IDSA) antimicrobial resistance workgroup.

These superbugs, once confined predominantly to hospitals, are rapidly spreading into the our communities—infants, healthy people and even athletes are at risk, notes Septimus, who serves as medical director for infection prevention at HCA Healthcare System, based in Nashville, Tenn.

When the solution becomes the problem

IDSA estimates that superbugs infect hundreds of thousands of Americans each year, causing tens of thousands of deaths. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released last year found that MRSA alone infects 94,000 people annually, killing nearly 19,000.

New drugs and strategies are needed to thwart this threat before strains of bacteria emerge that are resistant to all antibiotics, Septimus says: “It’s not a crisis yet, but it will become one if we don’t act.”

Ironically, antibiotics that can fight off infections are part of the problem, says Dr. N. Kent Peters, an antibiotic resistance program officer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md. This is because bacteria develop an increasing resistance to antibiotics the more they are used, so eventually tougher bugs emerge.

Already, numerous strains of bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics. In addition to MRSA, the list includes vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE), strains of tuberculosis, and Acinetobacter baumannii, which is infecting wounded U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.