Preparing for realities of drug-resistant microbes
Synonyms:
Managing post-anti-microbial era
Context:
Bacteria and viruses can mutate and evolve into forms resistant to standard drugs. In turn, new more complex drugs need to be developed to keep these strains in check, though given time, yet newer more complex strains of drug-resistant bacteria and viruses emerge. In this way, the war to control and eradicate diseases is becoming more difficult, more expensive, and less effective with time. It is suggested that the only way to guarantee absolute eradication of microbial disease is to prevent those microbes from developing new strains in the first place, and that would only be possible by eradicating those microbes from existence. Given that this is highly unlikely to happen, we must face the likely imminence of a "ticking time-bomb" of drug resistant diseases and epidemics, and accordingly best prepare for the event.