The Spread of Superbugs  

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Jenis: Article from Bulletin/Magazine
Dalam koleksi: The Economist (http://search.proquest.com/) vol. 399 no. 8727 (Apr. 2011), page 70-72.
Topik: Antibiotics; Drug Resistance; Microorganisms; Pandemics; International; Health Behavior

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Penicillin and the other antibiotics that its discovery prompted stand alongside vaccination as the greatest inventions of medical science. Yet antibiotic resistance has now become a costly and dangerous problem. Some people fear there may be worse to come: that a strain of resistant bacterium might start an epidemic for which no treatment was available. Yet despite Fleming's warning and despite a fair understanding of the causes of resistance and how they could be dealt with, dealing with them has proved elusive. Convenience, laziness, perverse financial incentives and sheer bad luck have conspired to nullify almost every attempt to stop the emergence of resistance. There are good reasons to hope that the extreme threat of a resistant epidemic will never come to pass--not least that 65 years of routine antibiotic use have failed to prompt one. Even so, the lesser problems of resistance continue to gnaw away at medicine, hurting people and diverting resources from more productive uses, often in the countries that can least afford it. Irresistible Convenience and laziness top the list of causes of antibiotic resistance. That is because those who misuse these drugs mostly do not pay the cost. Antibiotics work against bacteria, not viruses, yet patients who press their doctors to prescribe them for viral infections such as colds or influenza are seldom harmed by their self-indulgence. Nor are the doctors who write useless prescriptions in order to rid their surgeries of such hypochondriacs. Reining in overuse will be difficult and will require governments, companies and health-care providers to act in concert. It might even require patients to be just a bit less selfish.

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