Rise of the Superbugs: Deadly Bacteria Gaining Strength and Immunity

An enormous unseen army is rising, killing scores of people in its wake, and if we don't start doing something, it may become much worse, according to health officials in Britain and the U.S.

Staphylococcus aureus VISA

Virulent strains of bacteria are winning the decades-long fight against antibiotics and gaining strength, giving rise to "Superbugs" that are immune to antibiotics. This is so grave a threat that the world is facing an apocalyptic scenario where people die from commonplace infections, according to Dame Sally Davies, the United Kingdom's chief medical officer-equivalent to the U.S. Surgeon General, in LiveScience.

Speaking before Parliament, Davies said that superbugs immune to the effects of antibiotics are an imminent crisis and should be included on the government's official register of possible national emergencies, next to terrorist attacks and natural disasters, according to LiveScience.

"There are few public health issues of potentially greater importance for society than antibiotic resistance," Davies said. "We need to get our act together in this country."

U.S. officials don't paint a rosy picture either, and a deadly new superbug is on the rise and causing considerable worry.

These voracious microbes, called Clostridium difficile, can cause life-threatening inflammation of the colon, according to a Jan. 1 report by NBC12 News, in Richmond, Virginia. Infections from this bacterium are increasing and becoming more severe and difficult to treat. It's wreaking havoc in hospitals and nursing homes, NBC12 reports.

Symptoms include watery diarrhea, fever, nausea, pain and tenderness in the abdomen. According to My Health News Daily, people with weak immune systems and elderly people on antibiotics or who receive regular hospital care are the most at risk.

C. difficile is linked to 14,000 American deaths annually, the site reported.

In the evolutionary arms race, the microbes are winning.

Untreatable infections are already common, said Dr. Brad Spellberg, assistant professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, also according to the LiveScience article. Three are of special concern: Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumonia.

Each causes pneumonia, septicemia, urinary tract infections and many other infectious diseases, Spellberg said. Even worse, there's only one antibiotic that still works for Klebsiella, and it only works half the time, he noted.

According to the My Health News Daily article mentioned above, several other strains are also worrisome:

    Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Common in hospitals, this nasty microbe spreads by surface-to-surface contact into a full-blown staph infection if conditions are appropriate. The symptoms include pimple-like sores on the skin where the microbe launches its attack. Advanced cases can enter the bloodstream, attack major organs and lead to death. Infections from this nasty bug are increasing, especially in hospitals. In 2003, 21 out of every 1,000 hospital patients on average developed an infection. By 2008, that number had jumped to 42 out of 1,000 patients.
    Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis. Fortunately, this one is rare, since it's resistant to a number of antibiotics. Because there are few treatment options available, there's an increased risk of death. This contagious disease involves the lungs, but can spread to other organs. If a person with TB coughs or sneezes, microbes are released into the air, and can float for several hours. Anyone nearby risks infection. 10,528 cases of TB were reported in 2011, the article notes. People who fail to take their medications regularly are the most at risk for drug-resistant TB.
    Drug-resistant Gonorrhea. This sexually transmitted disease has developed resistance to traditional antibiotics such as sulfonilamides, penicillin, tetracycline and ciprofloxacin-all are prescribed to treat gonorrhea. 309,341 cases of gonorrhea were reported in the U.S. in 2010. Davies said that 80 percent of gonorrhea cases were now resistant to the commonly prescribed antibiotics and that infections were on the rise in young and middle-aged people.
    Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli. Found in the intestines, some strains are harmless, but others cause illness-diarrhea, urinary tract infections, respiratory infections and pneumonia. Infection starts when a person eats contaminated food, or drinks raw milk, or through the feces of infected people. STEC is resistant to most antibiotics, and treatment with antibiotics is discouraged because of the risk of hemolytic uremic syndrome-which destroys red blood cells and damages the kidneys. Approximately 265,000 infections occur in the U.S. each year, the article notes.

How did these bacteria become Superbugs?

Medical experts believe evolution takes part when patients harboring dangerous microbes take antibiotics.

"Anyone who doesn't believe in evolution just has to look at MRSA," said Dr. Martin Blaser, in the LiveScience article. Blaser is a professor at New York University School of Medicine and is a former president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA.)

Antibiotics kill billions of harmful microbes, but there's always a few stragglers that bear a life-saving genetic change which carries on their heritage. Over time, these microbes become resistant and if the same antibiotic is used again it's much less effective. Repeat this cycle a few times, and you have superbugs like MRSA.

In years past, humans lived in small spread-out populations. If a disease outbreak occurred it was over quickly because it had nowhere to go, Blaser said.

Now our populations are huge and connected worldwide with multitudes of elderly and people with diseases of the immune system. We are pushing the evolutionary envelope, Blaser told LiveScience.

What's worse is that drug companies have little incentive for producing new antibiotics. Expensive to test, customer turnaround is quick and unprofitable. Blaser and other members of IDSA are offering monetary incentives for drug companies to develop new antibiotics.

Forget about people's health, it's profit that matters.

"Until we develop new antibiotics and change our usage-we use antibiotics like water-these problems will persist," Blaser said.

There is a deadly bacterial stew boiling below people's feet and humans have pushed themselves to the edge of the cliff. Will the human race take a tumble?

This is the politics of greed. People die because drug companies don't make enough money manufacturing life-saving antibiotics. This is what the value of our lives comes down to: a dollar sign. gather