Since its discovery in 1928 by the Scottish scientist named Sir Ian Fleming, doctors have been prescribing penicillin to patients for the cure of everything from minor infections to life-threatening diseases. In medical terms, penicillin is classified as an antibiotic. An antibiotic is a chemical compound that inhibits or abolishes the growth of microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, or protozoa. Over 100 different antibiotics are now available in the market. Although antibiotics are useful in a wide variety of infections, it is important to note that antibiotics only treat bacterial infections.

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Perhaps, if he were alive today, it would surprise Sir Fleming to discover that the organisms that were wiped out by the first generation of penicillin that he developed had somehow made a comeback. Through research and disease surveillance, doctors and researchers have found that certain organisms were able to evolve and adapt defenses to some antibiotics. Once thought to have been “conquered” by penicillin, some strains of germs and other harmful organisms have become resistant to antibiotic.  These organisms on the rebound have been called by scientists and other experts from the medical community as “superbugs.”  Antibiotic resistance is the ability of a microorganism to withstand the effects of an antibiotic. It is a specific type of drug resistance. Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria change and adapt to the action or chemical effects of a drug that is designed to cure or prevent infections. Once the bacteria adapts and survives the onslaught of the drug, it is able to develop resistance and continue its harmful reproduction inside a host. MRSA or Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus is one among a number of organisms that have been found to be resistant to commonly used antibiotics. It is classified as a staph bacteria that triggers infections that could worsen into a life-threatening condition. Methicillin was an antibiotic used many years ago to treat patients with Staphylococcus Aureus infections. However, today, it is no longer used except as a means of identifying this particular type of antibiotic resistance.

Finally, after years of warnings from health authorities of the growing hazard posed by drug-resistant bacteria, people are now listening. A deadly strain of antibiotic-resistant bacteria seems to be responsible in the death of more people every year, according to a study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.  An estimated 19,000 deaths in 2005 appeared to be caused by fatal bacterial infections, a much greater number of mortality than that of AIDS, emphysema or homicide. The recent casualty was a 17-year-old high school football player in Virginia, a grim reminder that Community Acquired Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, or CA-MRSA, can victimized otherwise healthy people.

According to Dr. Charles Gerba, professor of environmental microbiology at the University of Arizona at Tucson, the best defense against the potentially deadly bacterial infection is common sense and cleanliness. “We need to reinvent hygiene for the 21st century,”he said. “You go to a grocery store, and hundreds of thousands of people have touched those surfaces every day. Microorganisms are evolving very rapidly.”

CA-MRSA is considered primarily a skin infection. Usually, it looks like a pimple, boil or spider bite, but it quickly worsens into an abscess or pus-filled blister or sore. Patients with sores that won’t heal or are filled with pus should immediately see a doctor and ask to be tested for staph infection. They should avoid squeezing the sore or try to drain it as it will only spread the infection to other parts of the skin or deeper into the body.

The disease caused by MDRB is increasing world wide.  How to combat these killers of mankind is the big area of concern for both developed and developing countries.  Develop more and more antibiotics, identify newer target sites and what not.  But will that answer the problem. We have multi various antibiotics of different generations.  But ability of the microbes to surpass them and to become MDRB is on steep increase.  Adaptation and survival of the fittest apply even to microbes.  Only way to win the battle with MDRB is evolution of disease resistance in humans.  How that could be possible.

How the MDRB are forming.  Is not the indiscriminate use of antibiotics contributed to the above.  To contain and control the disease caused by MDRB, we need to reinvest our mind and understand what the antibiotics will do in general.  The antibiotics will act against the pathogens and destroy them.  Post elimination of the pathogen, the host’s immunity is the one takes charge in recovering the patient.

Drug-resistant yeast infections, as the name implies, are yeast infections that have reached a stage where the infection, or the rather the cause of it, has managed to build-up a resistance to the drug-based medication(s) being used at the time. This makes the drug(s) ineffective and allows the infection to prosper.

The yeast-like fungus that causes the symptoms of yeast infection is called ‘candida albicans’ and can be found naturally in our bodies. It resides in the intestines, the vagina, mouth, anus, skin, under the fingernails, almost anywhere; although the dark, warm, moist areas are it’s favorite. Normally, you ‘friendly’ bacteria keeps it from spreading (overgrowing) and causing yeast infections.

Your good bacteria are an important element in your body’s natural defenses. But when their numbers are reduced, your natural defenses suffer, so that the candida fungus has the chance to ‘overgrow’ thus causing the symptoms of yeast infection. Two of the things that cause this to occur are antibiotics overuse and a lowered immune system. In other words your natural defenses are compromised.

The problem occurs when you use drug-based creams, gels, pessaries, etc., that are applied directly to the localized symptoms, for example, your vagina. After a week or two when your symptoms disappear you come off the treatment. But, for many women, that’s only eliminated the local symptoms: there’s still the fungus in their intestines. So what happens is that the yeast infection continues to spread and the local symptoms come back again.

Exceedingly detested but true, when diseases once treatable cease to respond to pharmaceutical drugs, the consequences can be devastating. However, things could change if the scientists succeed in successfully testing a newly developed mechanism to thwart drug resistance.

It’s impossible to talk of drug resistance and not mention the super bug, “Staphylococcus aureus.” Often it’s the bacteria that come to ones mind when you think drug resistance, but sometimes it can be other pathogens such as cancer cells. However, now researchers seem to be attempting to bluff these pathogenic cells to get potent medicine inside them, thus spelling their doom.

How The New Process Works?

One way by which resistance develops is when the pathogenic cells suddenly become clever (and cunning and @#$ ) and don’t let medicines seep through their skin and act against them. But taking a lead from nature the Stanford University have developed a method to combat this common form of resistance.

The solution formulated by scientists centers around the compound “Arginine,” an amino acid (amino acids are the building blocks of proteins) abundantly found in cells. As against other substances, when arginine rich compounds try to enter a cell they are welcomed, even by resistant cells.