The issue of antibiotic-resistant germs and bacteria is a serious and growing public health threat.
The staff at OnlineMPHDegree.net is not only passionate about helping students find a suitable distance learning public health program, we’re also passionate about the state of public health and issues surrounding us every day. As a group, the foods we try to eat are organic and free from pesticides, hormones and of course, antibiotics.
The issue of antibiotic-resistant germs and bacteria is a serious and growing public health threat. The biggest source of the problem is the overuse of antibiotics in medicine, which causing the effectiveness of these life-saving drugs to diminish. Another factor is using antibiotics in food animals to increase growth. Also related is the spreading of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria from one person to another. But then again, don’t antibiotics save lives in medicine? I personally was rescued by heavy doses of antibiotics twice in my life.
Overall, this serious public health problem is leading to two million people per year in the US acquiring antibiotic-resistant infections, and 23,000 Americans per year dying from antibiotic-resistant infections.
Some noteworthy takeaways:
The Threat of Antibiotic Resistance:
- 2 million: the number of people in the US that acquire serious antibiotic-resistant infections each year
- 23,000: the number of people in the US that die as a direct result of antibiotic resistant infections each year
- 250,000: the number of people in the US that require hospital care for Clostridium difficil (C. difficile: a unique bacterial infection directly related to antibiotic use and resistance) infections each year
- 14,000: the number of people in the US that die from C. difficil infections each year
Major Factors in the Growth of Antibiotic Resistance:
- Over use of antibiotics in medicine
- Over use of antibiotics in Food Animals to Promote Growth
- Spread of resistant strains of bacteria from person to person or from non-human sources in the environment
The graphic below was based on the Center for Disease Control’s Threat Report of 2013. It details the seriousness of the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant germs and bacteria.
