Mitigation Strategies for Vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Abstract

In just two hundred years the prevalence of infectious disease started soaring as new modes of travelling were invented. Now people could one place to another quickly carrying several kinds of disease with them. With the advent of diseases, life expectancy was reduced to around 35 years and death was rampant. These dire circumstances led to the discovery of antibiotics that became the main weapon of mankind against infectious diseases post-infection. Humanity was saved from the looming threat of constant epidemics and reduced life expectancy. Soon mankind began to thrive and people started increasing the use of antibiotics to battle all kinds of diseases. With overuse came the problem of misuse of antibiotics. People soon started using antibiotics without proper protocols and dosing regimens. This malpractice soon resulted in the emergence of a capability in bacteria to nullify the effects of antibiotics. The antibiotic resistance meant that the easily curable diseases once again became untreatable maladies. One such bacteria that gained antibiotic resistance was Staphylococcus aureus. S. aureus gained resistance against the methicillin group of antibiotics as they were commonly used against it. After that vancomycin became the drug of choice against methicillin-resistant S. aureus. Soon, people started misusing vancomycin too which quickly led to the development of vancomycin-resistant S. aureus (VRSA). VRSA were usually multidrug resistant bacteria that effectively rendered, many of the antibiotics being used against them, ineffective. These conditions forced the researchers to look for alternative medication modes and techniques for countering antibiotic resistance.