At a time when medicine is developing at a rapid pace, bacterial resistance, like a silent “time bomb”, poses unprecedented and serious challenges to global health.
Once upon a time, the advent of antibiotics was a milestone in medical history, making many of the otherwise deadly bacterial infections curable. However, with the widespread and even abusive use of antibiotics, bacteria are evolving to develop resistance. Today, there is a growing variety of drug-resistant bacteria, ranging from common golden screen to nodule scrawl, where resistance strains are difficult to kill by traditional antibiotics. This means that simple infections can again become fatal, that small wounds can cause uncontrolled whole-body infections and that treatment for diseases such as pneumonia and meningitis can become extremely difficult. According to statistics, the annual number of deaths due to bacterial resistance is rising, and if this trend is not effectively contained, by 2050 the global number of deaths from drug-resistant infections could exceed 10 million per year, even more than the number of cancer deaths.
Bacteria resistance is generated mainly from the irrational use of antibiotics. Antibiotics are overprescribed in some medical settings, for example, common flu is mostly caused by viruses, and the use of antibiotics is not only ineffective, but also contributes to the resistance of bacteria in the body. In agriculture, in order to promote livestock growth, a large number of antibiotics are added to feed, which further exacerbates the spread of bacterial resistance as the food chain enters the human body. In addition, the process of globalization has accelerated the spread of drug-resistant bacteria, which can spread to various parts of the world in a short period of time as a result of international travel and trade.
In the face of such daunting challenges, countries around the globe are actively seeking solutions. At the research and development level, scientists are working to develop new antibiotics. Unlike traditional antibiotics, new types of antibiotics will be designed for special mechanisms of resistance to bacteria, such as inhibiting the genetic expression of resistance to bacteria or undermining the new defence structure of bacteria. At the same time, new antibacterial techniques, such as antibacterium and antibacterial therapy, are also receiving attention. Antibacterium is a naturally occurring small molecular protein with a wide spectrum of antibacterial activity and does not easily induce bacterial resistance. Bacteria therapy is used to accurately kill specific resistant bacteria using bacterial viruses.
In addition to the development of new drugs, the rational use of antibiotics is critical. The management of antibiotic prescriptions should be strengthened in medical institutions, with professional training to improve the accuracy of the antibiotic use by doctors and to ensure that antibiotics are used only when they are really needed. For the general public, it is important to increase awareness of the fact that antibiotics are not almighty and cannot be used at will. In agriculture, the addition of antibiotics to feed should be gradually reduced, greener and healthy farming models, such as the Benevolent Bacillus method, should be explored, and healthy growth should be promoted by regulating the balance of the intestinal population of livestock.
In the context of global cooperation, States should strengthen information-sharing, jointly monitor trends in the prevalence of bacterial resistance and establish a unified database of drug resistance. International organizations should also play a coordinating role in promoting cooperative exchanges among countries in the areas of drug research and development, health policy development and so forth, in order to address this global health crisis.
Bacteria resistance is a global war without smoke, and it concerns the health of every human being. It is only through a global partnership that we will be able to win this race against drug-resistant bacteria and safeguard the future of human health, in the form of innovative development, rational use of medicines and international cooperation.
