Russian biologist Sergey Netesov announced that antibiotic resistance has become a serious problem for the health care sector. Are there certain ways to combat it?

In an interview with Radio “Sputnik”, the scientist indicated that the results of studies published in The Lancet Medical Journal, considered bacterial resistance to antibiotics, as one of the main causes of death in various countries of the world. One of the reasons for the development of bacterial resistance to antibiotics is related to their widespread prescription and high doses by doctors.

He says, “Antibiotics – are substances that bacteria produce, to get a place in the environment in place of other bacteria. That is, they carry genes for antibiotic production and resistance at the same time. And when humanity begins to use these antibiotics for itself and in large doses, the antibiotic resistance genes begin to be transferred from one bacterium to another.

As a result, some types of bacteria acquire multiple resistance to antibiotics, which makes them unaffected by all types of antibiotics.

“In order to defeat these bacteria, we needed the second and third generation of antibiotics, and now we need the fourth,” he says.

He adds, that is why scientists in the world are working first to create new antibiotics, and secondly to prevent their circulation without supervision and not to sell them without a prescription.

The scientist points out that the effective way to combat infectious diseases, in addition to antibiotics, is the use of viruses that kill bacteria (bacteriophages). These viruses are not widely used at present, but rather to a limited extent, indicating that the resistance of these viruses to these preparations is developing very slowly, so they must be developed and used.