MRSA Action UK: MRSA and the new generation of bacteria

Monday, 26 September 2011 8:09 AM

We hear talk from world leaders about the world economy staring into the abyss and the effects this will have on people’s lives if we enter another recession.

Last week at the Infection Prevention Society Conference in Bournemouth, we heard presentations from some of the country’s top medical professionals speaking about the future of healthcare, infection control, and the emergence of newer resistant and more deadly bacteria. We heard about the sheer lack of the development of newer antimicrobials by the pharmaceutical industry. More worryingly it was explained just what impact his will have on the future of medicine, not just in this country but across the world. In the years to come future generations medical treatment we currently take for granted will, at the very least be compromised by the risk of infection, or made simply too risky to carry out at all.

There is a sad irony, that world leaders at present seem fixated on a concerted effort to stave off a world recession and economic slowdown that may or may not happen, while their attention is drawn to this issue they seem blind, blinkered and deaf to the warnings that many in the medical world are saying that we may be five or ten years away from a new era of having no antimicrobials to treat both minor or serious infections. In fact we may have already reached that point with two bacteria, those being Tuberculosis and a new strain of Gonorrhea from Japan, that are untreatable by our present stock of antibiotics. Dr Stuart Flanagan in his article in a newspaper last week stated that we must get our stewardship of antibiotics under control to stave off a disaster in the future. This may sound overly dramatic, but listening to those experts at the conference last week they are convinced that it is a matter of when, not if.

What has not been mentioned and does have a dramatic effect on antibiotic resistance and the emergence of more superbugs is the use of antimicrobials by vets in animal husbandry and pets. Their use accounts for 50% of all the antibiotics used, yet we have yet to see the same stringent conditions placed on vets and the use of antibiotics as those placed on doctors.

It is now half a century since MRSA was discovered and went on to become the first bacteria to gain “Superbug” status and go global. In that time it has probably infected millions of people and killed countless hundreds of thousands of people. Of concern to us as an organisation is the development of Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemases (KPCs) and of New Delhi metallo-ß-lactamase-1 (NDM-1), which can be almost impossible to treat with our current stock of antibiotics, including carbapenems. If these bacteria spread with the same impunity as MRSA has, medical science will be sent back to the early part of the 20th century and cease to function as it does at present.

Joshua Lederberg the American molecular biologist once said that "The single biggest threat to man's continued dominance on the planet is the microbe"

Whilst human kind will continue to dominate our world, life expectancy will reduce for future generations if our political leaders fail to act and give support to medical science to develop newer and more innovative ways to combat the ever growing threat to human health these new “super-super bacteria” pose, for they will make the current MRSA and C.diff problem appear insignificant.

Our message to our political leaders both in this country and across the globe is simple,

“If we fail to act with a concerted effort against bacteria, it is certain that defeat against bacteria will lead to the complete and irremediable defeat for us and future generations.”

Derek Butler

MRSA Action UK

http://mrsaactionuk.net

07762 741114

derek.butler@mrsaactionuk.net

Tags:
• health
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• hospital hygiene
,
• hospitals
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• mrsa