Because of overuse of antibiotics and/or weakened governmental surveillance of infectious disease, several diseasesthat had been thought to be no longer a threat to humanhealth (e.g., pneumonia and tuberculosis) are rapidly becoming unmanageable. In several instances, so-called superbugs(microorganisms that are resistant to almost all known antibiotics) have been detected. How did this circumstancearise? What will happen if this process continues?

Because of overuse of antibiotics and/or weakened governmental surveillance of infectious disease, several diseasesthat had been thought to be no longer a threat to humanhealth (e.g., pneumonia and tuberculosis) are rapidly becoming unmanageable. In several instances, so-called superbugs(microorganisms that are resistant to almost all known antibiotics) have been detected. How did this circumstancearise? What will happen if this process continues?

Body Structures & Functions

12th Edition

ISBN:9781285695495

Author:Scott

Publisher:Scott

Chapter16: Infection Control And Standard Precautions

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 4CS

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The World Health Organization (WHO, 2017) haslisted six steps individualscan take to prevent and control the spread of antibiotic resistance. a.One of the recommendations is “Never demand antibiotics if your health worker says you don’t need them.”Explain why when you have a flu, your health care worker would say that you do not need antibiotics. What are the other five recommendations?
Penicillin was first used in the 1940s to treat gonorrhea infections produced by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. In 1984, according to the CDC, fewer than 1% of gonorrhea infections were caused by penicillin-resistant N. gonorrhoeae. By 1990, more than 10% of cases were penicillin resistant and a few years later the level of resistance was 95%. Explain the various ways this resistance could be spread among the cells. Could this resistance pass to other infectious bacteria from N. gonorrhoeae?
It was not until 1928 that penicillin, the first true antibiotic, was discovered by Alexander Fleming, Professor of Bacteriology at St. Mary's Hospital in London. Penicillin heralded the dawn of the antibiotic age. Before its introduction there was no effective treatment for infections such as pneumonia, gonorrhea or rheumatic fever. Hospitals were full of people with blood poisoning contracted from a cut or a scratch, and doctors could do little for them but wait and hope. 1. What is the mechanism of action of penicillin? 2. Cells treated with penicillin do not die immediately, so how this antibiotic is effective? 3. Why penicillin is most effective against Gram-positive bacteria? 4. Explain penicillin resistance mechanisms among bacteria today and the causes why they gained this resistance and making this great life-saving drug not usable anymore.
Identifying an unknown bacterium is an essential step in the diagnosis and treatment process. Since not every antibiotic is effective against every type of bacteria, knowing what caused a particular infection allows us to make correct prescriptions so patients can recover more quickly. Knowing the cause of an infection also prevents antibiotic resistance as well, since incorrect prescriptions allow bacteria to be unnecessarily be exposed to antibiotics, increasing the chances of developing resistance.
Introduction: There’s quite a bit of interest around repurposing extant drugs to treat infections by targeting host pathways that pathogens rely on. Here are a few potential drugs: 1) A drug that inhibits endocytosis, but not phagocytosis. 2) A drug that inhibits degradation of cytoplasmic proteins into smaller peptides, preventing their cycling back into amino acids. 3) A drug used to treat porphyria that reduces the reactivity of heme. 4) A drug that depletes glutathione, a chemical which protects red blood cells against the reactivity of heme. 5) A drug that reduces expression of the ACE-2 protein. Question: Pick a drug and an infection that the drug is likely to be good at treating, or pick an infection and a drug that would most likely make the infection substantially worse. Which drug and pathogen did you pick? Do you think it’ll make it better or worse?
Before development of a vaccine against this microbe, thedisease it caused accounted for two-thirds of bacterial meningi-tis cases during the first year of life but is still the number oneleading cause of mental retardation in patients who survive seri-ous disease due to permanent central nervous system disorders.What is the microorganism?(a) Haemophilus influenzae type B(b) Haemophilus influenzae type A(c) Neisseria meningitidis(d) Streptococcus pneumoniae(e) Listeria monocytogenes
Which one of the following is not correct? * a) Biocompatibility is the ability of a material to perform within an appropriate host response. b) Bioactivity is the characteristic that not allows the material to form a bond with living tissue c) Biodegradability is the breakdown of O the implant due to chemical or cellular interaction. O d) all of above
In 2013, there was an outbreak of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcusaureus (MRSA) at an NFL training facility. One player suffereda career-ending infection to his foot and sued the team owners for $20 million for unsanitary conditions that contributed to the bacterialinfection. A settlement with undisclosed terms was reached in2017. MRSA is highly contagious and is spread by direct skin contactor by airborne transmission and can result in amputation or death.In addition, MRSA is very difficult to treat because it is resistant tomany antibiotics. For example, b -lactam antibiotics, such as penicillin,function by binding to and inactivating bacterial penicillin-bindingproteins (PBPs), which synthesize the bacterial cell wall. However,MRSA expresses an alternative type of PBP, called PBP2a encodedby the mecA gene. b -lactam antibiotics only weakly bind PBP2a,and thus cell wall synthesis can continue in their presence. Moreover,in a system somewhat analogous to the regulation of the…
In 2013, there was an outbreak of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcusaureus (MRSA) at an NFL training facility. One player suffereda career-ending infection to his foot and sued the team owners for $20 million for unsanitary conditions that contributed to the bacterialinfection. A settlement with undisclosed terms was reached in2017. MRSA is highly contagious and is spread by direct skin contactor by airborne transmission and can result in amputation or death.In addition, MRSA is very difficult to treat because it is resistant tomany antibiotics. For example, b -lactam antibiotics, such as penicillin,function by binding to and inactivating bacterial penicillin-bindingproteins (PBPs), which synthesize the bacterial cell wall. However,MRSA expresses an alternative type of PBP, called PBP2a encodedby the mecA gene. b -lactam antibiotics only weakly bind PBP2a,and thus cell wall synthesis can continue in their presence. Moreover,in a system somewhat analogous to the regulation of the…
In 2013, there was an outbreak of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcusaureus (MRSA) at an NFL training facility. One player suffereda career-ending infection to his foot and sued the team owners for $20 million for unsanitary conditions that contributed to the bacterialinfection. A settlement with undisclosed terms was reached in2017. MRSA is highly contagious and is spread by direct skin contactor by airborne transmission and can result in amputation or death.In addition, MRSA is very difficult to treat because it is resistant tomany antibiotics. For example, b -lactam antibiotics, such as penicillin,function by binding to and inactivating bacterial penicillin-bindingproteins (PBPs), which synthesize the bacterial cell wall. However,MRSA expresses an alternative type of PBP, called PBP2a encodedby the mecA gene. b -lactam antibiotics only weakly bind PBP2a,and thus cell wall synthesis can continue in their presence. Moreover,in a system somewhat analogous to the regulation of the…
Drug-resistant TB can be acquired via sequential mutations in the pathogen’s genome, or via transmission of a resistant pathogen from another person. How can these events be distinguished? Why is it important to know which is more prevalent?
Select all of the following that applies to the tradeoff between transmission and virulence that applies to many diseases. a) The tradeoff between transmission and virulence means that diseases always evolve to become more virulent. b) If greater virulence limits transmission, that disease will likely evolve to become less virulent than it could be. c) While making more copies of itself can increase the likelihood of transmission occurring, too much replication of the disease can make the host so sick it won't leave the house and spread the disease. d) A strain of a disease that replicates enough to be transmitted, but not so much that the host gets too sick to move, will be favored by natural selection over strains that either make the host too sick or do not replicate enough to be transmitted. e) If a disease can spread without making its host sick (e.g. when the host is asymptomatic), then the tradeoff between transmission and virulence…