#antimicrobial resistance
A team of doctors and researchers working at Erasmus Hospital in Belgium has successfully treated an adult woman infected with a drug-resistant bacteria using a combination of bacteriophage therapy and antibiotics. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes the reasons for the use of the treatment and the ways it might be used in other cases.
Bacteriophages are viruses that infect and kill bacteria. Research involving their use in human patients has been ongoing for several decades, but they are still not used to treat patients. In this new effort, the researchers were presented with a unique opportunity not only to treat a patient in need of help, but to learn more about the possible use of viruses to treat patients infected with bacteria that have become resistant to conventional antibiotics.
Bacteria may Demonstrate any of Five General Mechanisms of Antibiotic Resistance:
1. Lack of entry; Decreased cell permeability.
2. Greater exit; Active efflux.
3. Enzymatic inactivation of the antibiotic.
4. Altered target; Modification of drug receptor site.
5. Synthesis of resistant metabolic pathway.
More than HIV, more than malaria. The death toll worldwide from bacterial antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in 2019 exceeded 1.2 million people, according to a new study.
In terms of preventable deaths, 1.27 million people could have been saved if drug-resistant infections were replaced with infections susceptible to current antibiotics. Furthermore, 4.95 million fewer people would have died if drug-resistant infections were replaced by no infections, researchers estimated.
