Top 10 Superbug On the Corner

    

Drug-resistant superbugs are potentially deadly strains of micro-organisms that we once had the power to control. Now these mutants take on the best of our medical weapons, wreaking havoc on the world’s health.  

So we want to know, what is the super villain behind those cause.

1. Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis

MDR TB for short, this strain is resistant to our two top tuberculosis drugs, isoniazid and rifampicin. The bacterium gained this deadly immunity partly through people not taking their TB medicine regularly, or stopping before the end of their treatment. Poor-quality medication or poor supplies are also partly to blame. Whatever the problem, the effect was the same: the bug was exposed to treatment without being destroyed. Once MDR TB is airborne – through the coughs and sneezes of an infected person – it can spread as easily as TB.

MDR TB kills at least 150,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Doctors are trying to reduce this number by improving the way patients take their medicine, and keeping infected people in isolation.

2. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

When the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus became methicillin resistant, it took on the name that has become the byword for superbugs: MRSA. In recent years, the number of deaths from MRSA in the US have rivalled the combined toll of AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis B,

3.  Drug-resistant malaria

Since the 1960s, malaria parasites such as this Plasmodium falciparum have been gaining the upper hand on chloroquine, the drug most widely used for treating the disease. New antimalarials have been discovered, but suffer from high prices and side effects. That has left some of the world's most vulnerable people at risk – according to the WHO, most of the 781,000 deaths each year from malaria are young children. 

The mosquitoes that carry the parasites can be combated with insecticides and mosquito nets. Drug resistance, meanwhile, is being fought by minimising the use of antimalarial drugs – for example, by not using them to treat non-malarial conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. 

4. Drug-resistant Shigella

Shigella is a bacterium that causes around 165 million cases of severe dysentery and more than 1 million deaths each year in the developing world.

It can be prevented by the simple means of improving sanitation and hygiene, but once it attacks, it can be deadly. Shigella has developed resistance to almost every medication that is suitable for its most common victims – children. Now our last line of defence, ciprofloxacin, is losing its teeth. New antibiotics are badly needed to reinforce the fight, says the WHO.

5. Drug-resistant gonorrhoea

The gonorrhoea bacterium has conquered the penicillin, tetracycline and fluoroquinolone antibiotics. Now it is overcoming cephalosporins, the last range of drugs that are both cheap and able to cure in just one dose. For a sexually transmitted disease, these factors are essential: people who are vulnerable to infection may be too poor, busy or embarrassed to visit a clinic more than once.

Gonorrhoea can be avoided by using a condom, but halting its drug resistance has proved a greater challenge. Researchers from Japan and Sweden have warned that "the era of untreatable gonorrhoea may now have been initiated". 

6. Streptococcus pneumoniae

Pneumonia was once easily targeted with penicillin, but resistant strains have made treatment harder and more expensive. Luckily, pneumonia is one of the few bugs on our most-wanted list to fall victim to a highly successful vaccine.

Even with vaccines on the scene, however, pneumonia continues to evolve. The latest vaccine, PCV13, was released last year and protects against many of the resistant types, but some remain dangerous.

7. Escherichia coli

E. coli is normally a good citizen of the human gut, but when the bacterium runs amok, it can be fatal. Not only is it a familiar source of serious food poisoning, it is the leading cause of urinary tract infections in the US. Such infections may not be deadly, but they suck up a lot of money by causing up to 8 million visits to the doctor per year in the US alone.

Drug-resistant strains of E. coli are popping up, particularly in the developing world, where antibiotic use without prescription is rampant, according to the CDDEP. E. coli can be controlled with better hospital hygiene, but reducing the overzealous use of antibiotics is the longer-term solution.

8. Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus

VRE is another gut bacterium that is a menace to hospital patients, the very ill and people with compromised immune systems. The ascendance of VRE is particularly scary because it can share its resistance genes with MRSA, creating the potential for a new superbug – VRSA

9. Carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae

CRKP is a real killer – infection is fatal in around half of cases. What is worse, it is difficult to detect and hard to fight, with only two imperfect treatments available. That makes it the next candidate for MRSA-style spread, according to the CDDEP.

10. Pseudomonas aeruginosa

This bacterium is found in hospitals and is difficult to get out of them. It frequently forms a biofilm, a permanent plaque on hospital equipment, where it lurks until it meets a seriously ill person. It then piggybacks on organs that are already affected by disease and contributes an infection that can kill over 50 per cent of its victims.

So far, P. aeruginosa has proven less talented at developing drug resistance than other pathogens, but it has the worrying ability to develop several immunities at once. That makes it one to watch.


Source: who.org