Successful strategies against increasing antibiotic resistance

Abstract

The development of antibiotic resistance, known since the early days of antibiotic therapy, has accelerated in recent years and makes a postantibiotic era a realistic future scenario. The battle against increasingly resistant strains has become a major concern for infectious disease and infection control specialists worldwide. The issue has now gained heightened awareness among physicians in all specialties and the public, and has become a challenge to hospital leadership. Detailed evidence about the causes and conditions of antibiotic resistance is accumulating, but the main axes have been known for some time: overuse and misuse of antibiotic therapy and transmission of multiresistant pathogens or genetic material between humans. Selection pressure by the systematic use of antibiotics as growth promoters in animal husbandry and the resulting transmission by the food chain is an additional important cause. This overview presents the most promising strategies to contain further resistance spread and hopefully inverse the current trend.