Antimicrobial resistance is an epidemic that kills close to 5 million people annually. The solutions are complex and must take into account the needs of the poor.
Testing for antimicrobial resistance in the lab.
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From the frontline battle against antibiotic resistance in Nigeria, to the techniques being used to find new antibiotics. Listen to The Conversation Weekly podcast.
Sacha Pidot, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity
Scientists are racing to discover new antibiotics that can defeat these drug-resistant superbugs. So how is the newly developed antibiotic clovibactin different?
Up to 20% of Australians admitted in hospital say they have a penicillin allergy. But not everyone who thinks they’re allergic to penicillin actually is.
Antibiotics have been around for less than a century. But as resistant bacteria become increasingly difficult to treat, we risk a greater number of deaths from infections.
The winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine made a discovery that helped create the COVID-19 vaccines. They couldn’t have anticipated the tremendous impact of their findings.
Strep is most common in children between the ages of 5 and 15.
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Despite an abundance of research on strep, there is still a great deal of debate in the scientific community over whether and when people should get tested and treated for it.
Terminus of the Recherchebreen glacier in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, about 760 miles from the North Pole.
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To fully understand the extent of climate-related dangers the Arctic – and our planet – is facing, we must focus on organisms too small to be seen with the naked eye.
Antimicrobial resistance is now a leading cause of death worldwide due to drug-resistant infections, including drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis, pneumonia and Staph infections like the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus shown here.
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Drug-resistant microbes are a serious threat for future pandemics, but the new draft of the WHO’s international pandemic agreement may not include provisions for antimicrobial resistance.
Gain-of-function experiments in the lab can help researchers get ahead of viruses naturally gaining the ability to infect people in the wild.
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Ancient microbes likely produced natural products their descendants today do not. Tapping into this lost chemical diversity could offer a potential source of new drugs.
Tolerant bacteria are dormant until an antibiotic threat has passed, then reemerge to conduct business as usual.
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Antibiotic resistance has contributed to millions of deaths worldwide. Research suggests that any bacteria can develop antibiotic tolerance, and possibly resistance, when pushed to their limits.
Candida auris is a fungal yeast that can infect humans.
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Candida auris is a relatively new addition to a family of fungi that can infect people. Most of these infections occur in sick, hospitalized patients and can be deadly.
Washing your hands reduces your risk of transmitting and contracting harmful bacteria from other people and the environment.
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Using a mathematical model, researchers found that good hygiene can reduce the harmful effects of antibiotic use.
In the HBO series ‘The Last of Us,’ the parasitic fungus cordyeps mutates, and jumps from insects to humans and quickly spreads around the world, rendering its victims helpless to control their thoughts and actions.
(HBO)
While ‘The Last of Us’ is a dramatic projection of a deadly fungal outbreak, it is based, if not in reality, in logic. And it’s a reminder that fungal infections are growing more resistant.
Antibiotics are for bacterial infections – they shouldn’t be prescribed to treat viruses.
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