“We have always known this is what will happen to resistance unchecked, and there is no reason to believe that their predictions will not come true,” Dr. Allison McGeer of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto told The Associate Press.
And as she told told The Ottawa Citizen, the public would barely notice the first signs of bacteria’s growing resistance to drugs. In the early stages superbugs, a child’s ear infection might be cured with a $120 prescription for cephixime instead of a $19 bottle of Amoxil. Health care costs would soar–switching to new super-antibiotics would cost $750,000 a year just in one hospital if they have to face the kind of superbugs common in U.S. hospitals today. But at least the ear infections would still clear up. The next stage, however, gets scarier. Patients with severe respiratory infections will be sick longer, and some will die, because in the extra days needed to find the right drug, the infection spreads and worsens. One solution, she believes, is for people to get flu shots. Although the flu is caused by a virus, people with flu often get antibiotic prescriptions just in case the bug turns out to be bacterial. Another low-tech solution is get in the habit of washing your hands. “Increasing hand-washing reduces respiratory infections by an average of 40 per cent. If we did that, we’d have a huge impact of antibiotic use … and not so much antibiotic resistance.”
“This study, along with many others before it, emphasizes the need to use antibiotic drugs wisely, namely only when there is a bacterial infection present that will respond to them and not for colds and other viral infections,” Dr. Marc Lipsitch, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health. Lipsitch added that it is uncertain whether antibiotic resistance can be reduced once it reaches high levels. “This is a case where prevention is much more effective than trying to fix the problem once it emerges.” The findings emphasize the need to use vaccines to prevent illnesses caused by strep. One vaccine that prevents a large majority of disease caused by S. pneumoniae is recommended for all infants in the US. This vaccine can reduce ear infections in children, which is the most common infection caused by S. pneumoniae. Another vaccine protects against a wider variety of S. pneumoniae strains, but it is highly effective only in adults.