figured out that they
make a lot more money
selling the latter drugs
than they do selling
antibiotics,” Spellberg
says, “highlighting the
lack of incentive for
companies to develop
antibiotic”5. The lack
of initiative to produce
new antibiotics is a
clear flaw in the plan
to revolutionise
antibiotic
medicine.
While the
lack
of
interest
in creating these
n e w
treatments is
clearly due to expense,
some companies however are still working
hard to improve this
technology.
Dr John H Rex, Head
of Infection and Global
Medicines Development
at AstraZeneca recently spoke about the dangers of antimicrobial
resistance on National
Public Radio’s “To the
Point” show6, during
which he noted that he
is terrified at the prospect of returning to a
pre-antibiotic era. This
display of the true concerns for the development of antibiotics as
they are; hard to discover, hard to develop, and the econom-
The resistance against
antibiotics is commonly
described as the situation when the concentration of antibiotic
needed to kill the bacteria cannot be achieved
at the site of infection.
However, if a bacteria is
resistant to one strain
of antibiotic this does
not mean it will be to
a new or different type. This
highlights
the need
for
new
antibiotics to pre-
ics difficult to manage;
suggests scientists are
still working increasingly hard to assist in
developing new strains
of antibiotic, even if
some corporations have
deemed it too expensive.
vent bacteria that is
resistant to multiple
types of treatment,
named
‘multi-resistant’. There are many
works being done to
prevent the spread of
multi-resistant
bacteria for example, “A
group of International
experts came together through a joint ini-
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