Please watch the Rise of the Superbugs video before the

Please watch the Rise of the Superbugs video before the discussion (excerpt from the Rx for Survival Series)

1. Choose one of the following questions:
   1. What are “superbugs,” how do they develop, and what are some public health methods that may prevent their development?
   2. Why aren’t there more new antibiotics and why does it matter in terms of public health?
   3. What are some specific public health approaches that can be used to increase public awareness of the challenges that superbugs and antibiotic resistance create?
2. Answer your selected question using only the information from the video
3. In one paragraph, identify and briefly describe what additional information would help answer your question.
4. Identify at least one additional reputable source of information and summarize what information it includes and how it helps you answer your question.
5. Describe and explain what you think is the biggest public health challenge in moving forward with this issue.

Rise of the Superbugs

For close to half a century, antibiotics have typically given people a secure and efficient way of treating infections that once approved life-threatening and fatal thus bringing back the hope of a cure. However, the constant development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the recent times is subjecting this golden era of medicine into jeopardy. Currently, people find themselves in a race of preventing bacterial infections from once again emerging as one of the humanity’s big killers. Before the introduction of antibiotics, all the bacterial diseases were typically life threatening; however, with the introduction of antibiotics and growth of techniques to mass-production, several bacterial infections can easily be treated. As observed by Watson, S. (2010), any given population of organism experiencing challenges to its existence has the potentiality of adapting through the process of natural selection. For instance, several insects have become resistant to insecticides, and a majority of weeds have proved resistant to the herbicides. Therefore, bacterial infections may also prove to be life-threatening because certain bacteria have responded to the escalating existence of antibiotics through becoming immune to them.

Because time is changing and bacteria have become smarter and are continually proving tough to the modern antibiotics, the production of medicines has become minimal thus growing into a health problem. According to Rountree, R. (2015), out of the several drugs currently under review, a few portions consist of antibiotics, and this has proven to be wrong news to the public and the users of these kinds of medicines. It typically takes ten years to acquire tetracycline anywhere new the market, and this has discouraged other producing from investing in antibiotic production. Therefore, there should be an intervention on how these drugs should be provided in an efficient, faster and reliable manner since drugs do not come cheap. It can effortlessly cost industries a lot of finances to come up with a new drug in the market, and since the antibiotics are not taken frequently, they are considered to be less profitable than those medicines that people consume on a daily basis. This is one of the primary reasons as to why a majority of pharmaceutical companies are getting out of the antibiotics production business due to lack of profit and stability within the marketing environment. Several companies are typically considering several factors regarding profitability and the best production process where one can invest his or her financial services.

Antibiotics are not only less profitable to the pharmaceutical companies, but also microorganisms are proving harder to find even though not all companies have surrendered on conducting a further search. The hospital under study is continuously faced with bacteria proving to be difficult to cure with the existing antibiotics and running out of the essential weapons to use against them, and this crisis is proving to be worse. This is a health disaster to the public health as minimal efforts can be applied towards the crisis arising from few antibiotics production and the existence of severe bacteria (Watson, 2010). The emergence of drug-resistant infections is also becoming a threat to the public health division as this is growing into an international problem and may lead to loss of many lives. Therefore, the most significant public health challenge to the issue of antibiotics shortage; is the strategies laid that will typically lead to the production of drugs that will result in future cure the emerging antibiotic resistance illnesses. Pharmaceutical industries need to strategize on how they are going to come up with new drugs that can consequently cure diseases and deal with the fear of resistance growth. The new antibiotics introduced in the market are typically not unique as they are just variations of those already existing in the market; thus, bacteria are still likely to develop resistance to them.

References

Rountree, R. (2015). Roundoc Rx: Monoculture and Loss of Biodiversity: Effects on Human Health. Alternative and Complementary Therapies, 21(1), 6-12.

Watson, S. (2010). Superbugs: The Rise of Drug-resistant Germs. The Rosen Publishing Group.