Antibiotic Resistance Lab Report

INTRODUCTION

Antibiotic as is any chemical or drug that can be used to effectively either halt the growth of, destroy toxins from or destroy the entire organism. They are said to be narrow or wide/extended in their range of activity depending on if they act on a limited number of organisms or a vast number of organisms respectively. Antibiotics resistance occurs when a microbe or a group of microbes develop a mechanism to reduce the potency or efficacy of a drug which was once effective as its treatment.[1]

Most antibiotics in the market today usually target an exclusive biology of an organism in such a way that the drug will affect the organism specifically and do little or no harm to the host, so in any event an organism mutates genes coding

An example is sulfomethoxazole [SMX] of the sulfonamide family: some bacteria utilize para-amino benzoic acid[PABA] a start-up product in producing folic acid –containing intermediates for DNA replication, using the enzyme dihydroptorate synthase to produce dihydroptorate. SMX blocks this enzyme, but these days, study has shown some bacteria that totally for-go this PABA pathway, these bacteria are now resistant to SMX because it really has nothing to work on.[2]

Enzymatic destruction of antibiotics: some microbes develop antibiotics resistance by producing enzyme to destroy the antibiotics. An example is the beta-lactam antibiotics, namely penicillins, amoxicillin. These antibiotics have this part of their chemistry, the beta-lactam rings, some organisms especially the gram-negatives carry in their periplasm enzymes called beta-lactamses, to destroy any drug with this beta-lactam rings.[3]

Reduced uptake: some microbes also develop a mechanism to reduce the uptake of antibiotics, an example is resistance to the

As stated ealier, in case of infection with a resistant organism, and the effective drug is not within reach, in terms of morbidity, the patient will have to deal with the complications of the infection, and in terms of mortality the patient may develop widespread bacteremia and sepsis and this can lead to mortality. Another interesting fact is that these resistant organisms actually spread faster than the non-resistant ones, may be because they feel “powerful” and when one person in a ward or community gets it, others are sure to be partakers if the situation goes unchecked, and this increases both the morbidity and mortality of individuals exposed to these organisms.[9]

SOLUTIONS

The fight against antibiotics resistance is a collective one, individuals, health care professionals on all levels, social workers, the media, government all have a role to play.

Awareness: the media, health-care professionals should make an effort to educate the people on the dangers of suboptimal dosing especially, it should be an “all-or-nothing-rule, either take a full dosage of an antibiotic or don’t start at