In the course of medical development, the birth of antibacterial drugs was a light of hope, which brought revolutionary change to humans against bacterial infections and saved countless lives. However, as time passes, we are now in a serious crisis caused by the abuse of antibacterial drugs — the emergence of superbs, like the fierce and difficult “demons”, which pose an unprecedented threat to human health.
Antibacterial abuse spreads at multiple levels. In the medical field, some doctors are pressured by the patient ‘ s eagerness to recover quickly or tend to open broad spectrum antibacterial drugs when the diagnosis is not yet clear. This “spread-net fishing” drug strategy, which is intended to completely contain potentially pathogenic bacteria, is not the same as it was intended. The influx of non-targeted antibacterial drugs into the human body exposes bacterial communities to a serious “life test”. Bacteria that have natural resistance genes or that have mutated to acquire resistance under the drug “blastomic bombing” have emerged out of reach and have gained vast breeding space. For example, in some primary health-care institutions, limited to poor detection equipment and a shortage of professional staff, the proliferation of empirical drugs, the random use of antibacterial drugs on the basis of symptoms alone, and the lack of a true match for the bacteria that cause the disease, the strain of the drug-resistant strain is growing and growing.
And the livestock industry became a “high-risk area” for anti-bacterial abuse. In pursuit of the loss of breeding as a result of the rapid growth of livestock and the prevention of disease, farmers have been adding antibacterial drugs to feed for long and large periods. Animals continue to accumulate drug-resistant bacteria in their bodies during day-to-day breeding. These drug-resistant bacteria, which pass through the food chain layer, end up on people’s tables, entering the human body silently, becoming a “living force” of drug-resistant strains in the human body, and laying pens for the formation and spread of superb bacteria.
Super bacteria are named “super” because they have a chilling drug resistance. In the past, the usual antibacterials were like “throwing trees” and were ineffective. Like MRSA, which is one of the first known superb bacteria, it is highly resistant to traditional β-neamamine antibacterials, such as methyloxysilin, and is frequently absent from the hospital environment, especially in the scenes of surgical injuries and lung infections, which greatly prolong patient hospitalization and increase treatment costs and mortality. And the carbon cyanide-resistant intestinal bacterium (CRE), which is almost the most effective carbon cyanide in clinical terms. The alkyl antibacterials are snorting and, when infected with humans, especially those with low immune capacity and those in intensive care, they often give rise to serious disorders such as sepsis and pneumonia, which are difficult to control, such as the “sword of death” that hangs over the head of the patient.
The consequences of superb bacteria are catastrophic. At the clinical level, the once-functioning “anti-bacterial arsenal” has failed, and doctors are often helpless in the face of patients infected with super-bacterium, and can only watch their condition deteriorate. Even if treatment programmes are forced to shift to second- and third-line antibacterial drugs that are expensive, scarce and at higher risk of side effects, the cure rate remains significantly compromised. This also leads directly to the massive depletion of health-care resources, the heavy financial burden on the families of the patients and the frequent return to poverty as a result of illness. From a public health perspective, superb bacteria, with their powerful ability to communicate, are spreading indiscriminately in densely populated places such as hospitals, communities and so forth, like the invisible “pest”, threatening the health and safety of every individual and exposing the global system of health prevention and control to unprecedented challenges and pressures.
A multi-pronged approach is needed to break out of the mudslides caused by the abuse of antibacterial drugs and to reverse the hyperbacteria. Government regulatory authorities should strengthen controls over the production, sale and use of microbacterials and strictly regulate them.
