The world is on a dangerous road back to the pre-antibiotic era, in which a seemingly simple bacterial infection may be an irreversible death sentence, according to a report published in Medium.
The article highlights the numbers: the $1 billion price tag to produce an antibiotic, the short usage times preventing drug companies from breaking even, the mere five new antibiotics in development in 2004.
Without antibiotics, routine procedures, including catheterization, ventilation and dialysis would become life-threatening. Safe surgery would be nearly impossible. Injections would be dangerous. Essentially, any procedure in which bacteria are introduced into the body would become a sort of Russian roulette.
"We deal with [the risks associated with various medical treatments] now by loading people up with broad-spectrum antibiotics, sometimes for weeks at a stretch. But if you can't do that, the decision to treat somebody takes on a different ethical tone. Similarly with transplantation. And severe burns are hugely susceptible to infection. Burn units would have a very, very difficult task keeping people alive," said Michael Bell, MD, director of an infection prevention division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The production of a greater number of antibiotics might stave off disaster for the time being; however, incentives for pharmaceutical companies will have to change. Even then, the timeline for pharmaceutical development is such that solutions will be slow to come. In the meantime, better infection control practices may hold some promise, though the future of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance remains uncertain, according to the report.
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