Alternative measures to address antibiotic resistance

Antibiotics are a pillar of modern medicine. Their use has reduced childhood mortality, and supported invasive surgery, complex treatments, and robotics-guided surgeries by managing secondary bacterial infections. Several factors, such as incorrect antibiotic use, patient factors, over-prescription by physicians, monotherapy, misuse of antibiotics as a business model by hospitals, prescriptions from the veterinary sector, commercial and marketing promotion, over-the-counter sale of antibiotics, prevailing microbiological testing methods, and the role of globalization in economic growth are combined with the extreme decline in antibiotic research, were only fueled the development of antimicrobial resistance. The increasing use of broad-spectrum antibiotics contributes to the development of MDR organisms. This also adds to the risk of re-emergence of many diseases like the emergence of XDR-TB (extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis) and the development of resistance against tigecycline and colistin, regarded as “salvage” medicines in medical treatment. The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified AMR as one of the three most severe threats to human health. Environmental bacteria may acquire antibiotic resistance by co-existence, evolution, or horizontal gene transfer (HGT), which can significantly impact antimicrobial resistance compared to vertical gene transfer.