US to aim for curbing antibiotic resistance

The Obama administration announced a national strategy and measures to cope with the growing public health concern that kills thousands every day and is expected to claim more lives if appropriate actions aren't taken: antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotic resistance causes more than 23,000 death a year and the numbers are expected to rise as more and more bacteria acquire resistance to the drugs.

Antibiotics are a group of drugs that kills bacteria and are commonly used to treat bacterial infections in humans and animals.

Alexander Fleming, Scottish scientist who discovered Penicillin, gave the world a groundbreaking invention and changed the course of the century. Before the discovery of antibiotics, people used to die because of simple infections that we now just take couple of pills for and get treated easily. They also expanded human life expectancy and improved the quality of life.

"The wonder drug of the 20th Century", which has saved millions of lives, might not work that well anymore, according to many experts of the field, including the World Health Organization.

Scientists have been expressing their concerns about the issue for a while now. Some even say that if the necessary precautions aren't taken and the trend isn't addressed, we might go back to the beginning where simple bacterial infections aren't curable any more, The New York Times  reported.

One of the biggest culprits of the antibiotic resistance is the overuse. For example taking antibiotics when you have a cold or flu, which is caused by viruses that antibiotics aren't capable of treating.

According to the statistics, these drugs are used twice as often in America than other industrialized nations like Germany and Netherlands, the Times stated.

Experts in the field say that the use of antibiotics by individuals for treatment is just one part of the problem.

Another cause of the problem is the industrial-scale use of the drugs, especially when fed to livestock to make them grow faster and prevent them from getting sick in crowded, unhealthy settings.

The times reported that more than six times more antibiotics given to livestock raised in the US than their Norwegian and Danish counterparts.

The administration seems to be taking action to combat the crisis, but many experts are not impressed. Many state that the report, which didn't address the agricultural use of the drug is disappointing. Simply because it just ignores a big part of the problem that agricultural use of antibiotics make up more than the 70% of total use, said the Times.