How to diminish microbial resistance to antibiotics ?
Drug-resistant microbes pose a new threat to our society. Infectious diseases that were prevalent in the Thirties, e.g., pneumonia, meningitis, and typhoid, and virtually disappeared after the discovery of antibiotics, are gradually returning. More and more microbes become resistant to antibiotics. While in 1942 virtually all strains of Staphylococcus aureus worldwide were susceptible to penicillin G, today more than 95% of Staphylococcus aureus worldwide are resistant to penicillin, ampicillin, and anti-pseudomonas penicillins (1). Multi-drug resistance is most pronounced in the recently emerging tubercle bacillus (2). This alarming development was recently reviewed in “Science” (1-5). Resistance may be acquired in several ways, e.g., chromosomal mutation, inductive expression of a latent chromosomal gene, exchange of genetic material through transformation, and conjugation with plasmid transfer of DNA (1). As the pharmaceutical industry continues developing new antibiotics, more and
