Resistance to antibiotics in northern Nigeria: what bacteria are prevalent, and which drugs work against them
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Sunday, September 17, 2023
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Antimicrobial resistance – the ability of microorganisms to resist drugs that have been developed to control them – is a severe problem in African countries.
Key Points:
- Antimicrobial resistance – the ability of microorganisms to resist drugs that have been developed to control them – is a severe problem in African countries.
- The continent has the highest global burden of antimicrobial-resistant infections, with 114.8 deaths per 100,000 people.
- Physicians need laboratory data to choose the right antibiotic, at the right dose, for the right period of time.
- This can lead to choosing ineffective antibiotics, which can lead to increases in resistant bacteria.
- In other words, to develop a list of what bacteria are prevalent in the region and which drugs work against them.
- To accomplish this, we recently conducted a study of multidrug-resistant bacteria obtained from patients in six hospitals in northern Nigeria.
Drug-resistant bacteria in Nigeria
- We chose to analyse bacteria that are resistant to more than one drug because they are the biggest challenge when treating infections.
- We found that about 85% of the bacteria isolated from infections were resistant to the most commonly used antibiotics.
- The good news was that two antibiotics, tigecycline and fosfomycin, remained very active even against highly resistant strains of bacteria.
Genetic mechanisms
- This was done to understand what made these organisms so resistant to antibiotics at the molecular level.
- The data revealed an astonishingly high number of genetic mechanisms making the microorganisms resistant.
- In some cases, the genetic information encoding resistance was capable of being shared among other microorganisms.
The need for antimicrobial stewardship
- Some of the resistance genes were capable of moving from one microorganism to another (mobile resistance genes).
- Antimicrobial stewardship based on laboratory data is effective especially if done locally, regionally and nationally.
Antimicrobial resistance is everyone’s concern
- Read more:
Antimicrobial resistance calls for brainpower of a space agency and campaigning zeal of an NGOFourth, there are things that everyone can do to help bring antibiotic resistance under control.
- For example, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention list five things that everyone should know about drug resistance and 10 activities to protect yourself and your family against resistance.
- He is affiliated with the International Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.