SUPERBUGS AND RECENT CONTROLLING APPROACHES: A MINI REVIEW

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing threat to human and animal health, reducing the ability to treat bacterial infections and consequently the risk of morbidity and mortality caused by resistant bacteria. The World Health Organization (WHO) has predicted 10 million deaths by 2050 due to infectious diseases. A considerable increase in the number of pathogens harbor multidrug resistance genes, seemed to be arising from the extensive use of antimicrobial agents for medical issues particularly in food-producing animals, along with the many pathways of their release into the environment. The emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) microorganisms has threatened the longstanding use of antibiotics, which were globally used to save millions of lives. The evolution and spread of AMR have a great adverse impact on human beings. Naturally, bacteria have the genetic ability to acquire and spread resistance to therapeutic agents. Therefore, the major challenge has been to limit the extensive and the inappropriate overuse of antibiotics, in addition to finding new drugs either from synthetic or natural origin to counter microbial resistance by acting on the specific target responsible for MDR. To overcome the crisis of antimicrobial drug resistance, WHO has issued several guidelines on the use of antimicrobial agents, such as preserving antibiotics that are important for human health and preventing their usage in agriculture. Several therapeutic approaches like vaccines, antimicrobial peptides, bacteriophages, and nanotechnology, along with phytochemicals and herbal medicines, are applied in vitro and in vivo experiments and are supposed to be suitable candidates for antimicrobials to combat the rapidly evolving AMR. In this review, we will discuss the causes of this resistance, types, its spread between ecosystems, super-resistance associated with superbugs like E. coli, and the possible therapeutic approaches against MDR pathogens.

Keywords

• antibiotic resistance
• extended spectrum ꞵ-lactamase
• horizontal transfer
• herapeutic approaches
• nanoparticles
• bacteriophage