- Acinetobacter baumannii is one category of bacteria that is estimated to already be killing tens of thousands of hospital patients each year.
- There are medicines that treat Acinetobacter baumannii, but new treatments are not being heavily researched and in that time, the bacteria is evolving and not responding to the current treatments.
- Dr. Louis B. Rice, an infectious-disease specialist at the Louis Stokes Cleveland V.A. Medical Center and at Case Western Reserve University said, “There are strains out there, and they are becoming more and more common, that are resistant to virtually every antibiotic we have.”
- This strain of bacteria can cause pneumonia and infection to the urinary tract, bloodstream, and other parts of the body. The cell structure of the bacteria is what makes it more difficult to attack with antibodies than other infectious bacteria.
- The drugs that are currently being used to treat this strain of bacteria are colistin and polymyxin B. However, they are not used often because they have been known to cause kidney and nerve damage. Since they are not used often, the bacteria has not had a chance to evolve resistance to them yet. They are still trying to find better treatments, though.
Reflection:
This article relates to our class because it is similar to the strain of AIDs we studied that evolves to become resistant to the medicines designed to treat it. If doctors could foresee how a disease or infection would evolve, they could come up with better treatments. If this happened, people would have a higher chance of surviving infections, cancer, or AIDs. In conclusion, this article helped me to better understand the evolution of strains of bacteria to become resistant to treatments.
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