The Antibiotic War !

The world got a scare when this coronavirus  pandemic burst out of China and stopped the flow of people from one country to another.  A year later and we are still trying to decide if the vaccines we have developed gives immunity, or whether its constant variations will need an annual booster shot.

So far the pandemic has killed about five milllion people in a world population of about seven billion so the odds of a person dying of COVID 19 are remote.   But we are facing a more immediate danger from the effective withdrawal of antibiotics as a weapon for treating infections.

These miracle drugs. were grossly over used.  Patients demanded them for viruses like the common cold, and often stopped taking them mid course when the symptoms cleared.   That enabled the bug to develop immunity and over time the number of antibiotics available for treatment became dangerously low.  That is now a critical problem in most hospitals.

This comes at a time when a new, flesh eating bacteria is making sporadic appearances after surgery and appears to be resistant to even the last of these antibiotics.  A parliamentary enquiry is considering the case of a tradesman who had the misfortune to suffer a cut to his hip when he misjudged the use of an angle grinder.

He presented at a country hospital and a surgeon treated the wound, stitched it and ask him to return in a week to have the stitches removed.  He asked for antibiotics and they were refused, despite the angle grinder that caused the problem being a " dirty " implement.

The wound became swollen and painful during the next five days and he was then given antibiotics and sent home.  He had a fever and cellulitis and the doctor marked the wound and told him to return if it moved beyond those limits.

Three days later the patient woke in excruciating pain.  The swelling had bloomed from the knee to the hip.  Hospital tests confirmed he had necrotising fasciitis caused by an antibiotic resistant staphylococcus. A surgeon cut away infected tissue before the patient was  airlifted to Adelaide.

The patient went into septic shock and was placed in a coma.  He lost 33 kg, and once a very fit man, finally emerged " as a wreck ". It was almost a miracle that he survived.

Unfortunately, the bug that caused this damage is still a mystery.  We are fast running out of ways to treat it and it can make an appearance from even a minor wound.  What we need is a new line of antibiotics and that can only come if the major drug companies undertake the necessary research to come up with an answer.

A lot of promising drug research has been put on hold while the urgency of finding a vaccine for coronavirus has taken precedence.  Now a new challenge awaits  !