Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 15

Research Paper Example n informed the public that Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), a bacterium that resists the strongest antibiotics, lead to 19,000 deaths in America annually (Walsh and Fischbach 44). They emphasized that 20% of those who died from MRSA were young and healthy people who got infected while going through their daily routines. Furthermore, antimicrobial resistance is not only a national problem because it can soon develop into a global national health issue without immediate and long-term national and international collaboration. Doctor Anuj Sharma of the World Health Organization (WHO) stresses that without local and worldwide resolutions, diseases that used to be easily cured would soon be untreatable. Before resolutions to the problem of superbugs, or drug-resistant microbials, are discussed, the paper explores the history of MRSA first because it will help understand the justification for the proposal. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is not a new healthcare problem. Christopher T. Walsh, a Hamilton Kuhn professor of biological chemistry, and Michael A. Fischbach, a microbiologist at the University of California, describe the development of superbugs, which started in the late 1950s. Methicillin, a drug derived from penicillin, was used in 1959 to treat infections that were already resistant to penicillin, like S. aureus and Streptococcus pneumonia (Walsh and Fischbach 44). Two years after, European hospitals reported that they experienced methicillin-resistant strains of S. aureus, and since then, MRSA spread to other healthcare institutions across the globe (Walsh and Fischbach 44). By the 1990s, a new strain of MRSA infections developed in the community, as microbials learned t o fight the drugs that aimed to kill them. The most effective antibiotic then was vancomycin, but soon, vancomycin-resistant bacteria developed. Walsh and Fischbach illustrate the reality of antibiotics, wherein â€Å"from the moment an antibiotic is introduced in the clinic,