The Wall_Spring 2023_Issue 9

Nabil Elsayed , (he/him), S9, discusses the reasons behind the growing antibiotic resistance crisis and the impact it will have on our futures. Since 1928, antibiotics have treated an extraordinary number of people suffering from bacterial infections such as tuberculosis and pneumonia. But, less than a century on, the world is at risk: this vital drug could soon stop working. This potential crisis is due to the overuse of these bacteria-killing medicines.When we deploy antibiotics, some bacteria are killed but other, more resistant ones, survive.The more that we rely on antibiotics, the stronger these resistant strains become, due to mutations in their DNA.These mutations are passed on by surviving bacteria, increasing the population of resistant bacteria.This is known as

antibiotic resistance. Based on evidence from the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately one third of antibiotics are used inappropriately: the drug is often overprescribed and used for longer than necessary. The gravity of this issue was highlighted by a United Nations interagency group on antimicrobial resistance in 2019, which declared that drug-resistant diseases kill approximately 700,000 people per year and that this could increase to 10 million by 2050 if no action is taken soon. Another cause of this urgent problem is the end of research into antibiotics. For pharmaceutical companies, investing in antibiotics research results in very little profit because of its high price and extremely time-consuming production

process. Estimates show that antibiotic development can cost up to 1.5 billion dollars and take as long as 15 years. Due to the lack of financial incentive, larger companies continue to leave this market and only smaller ones remain in the field.The last antibiotic discovered was in the 1980s and the fear that we won’t discover a new antibiotic soon enough continues to grow. What would happen if there were no more antibiotics?Without working antibiotics, global life expectancy would plummet to 50 years. In addition, common infections could become life-threatening. It would be too risky to perform surgery; chemotherapy for cancer and healthcare all over the world would be severely affected. Leading medical researchers must act; we won’t understand just how much we are dependent upon antibiotics until they no longer work.

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