Bacteria refer to a large area of prokaryotic microorganisms. A gram of soil can possibly contain up to forty million bacterial cells. Bacterial microorganisms can be found nearly anywhere and can adjust extremely well to surrounding conditions. (Christian Nordqvist (2009) )
Not all bacteria are harmful. By recycling nutrients bacteria become a valuable resource for the human body. Large colonies of bacteria called probiotics are contained in our large intestine, where they are responsible for producing vitamins that our bodies need to survive. Even though the majority of bacteria in the body are valuable and harmless there exists another type of bacteria that has quite the opposite role. These microbes are called pathogenic bacteria.
Pathogenic bacteria are the type of bacteria which are highly responsible for infections and diseases. They invade, reproduce, and cause the infected host harm. According to the (Washington State Department of Health), Tuberculosis is one of the most common fatal diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria. It is primarily treated with a course of strong antibiotics to fight the infection. Antibiotics inhibit the growth of bacteria and are used to treat infections. They target not only pathogenic but also probiotic bacteria. Other common ways bacteria are neutralized are by the use of disinfectants, high heat, and ultraviolet irradiation.
When the bacteria will no longer respond to methods of neutralization they are said by many scientists to be resistant. In modern times bacterial organisms have become resistant to treatments of antibiotics. It is not as if there is only one kind of antibiotics, but many different kinds varying in strength and effectiveness. When pathogenic bacteria become able to withstand more than one different treatment they are called multidrug resistant bacteria. These multidrug resistant bacteria are becoming a serious concern in the modern-day medical field. The Center of Disease Control (C.D.C) has gone as far as prioritizing bacteria as “urgent, serious, and concerning”. The C.D.C. (2013) states, “In the United States, more than two million people are sickened every year with antibiotic-resistant infections, with at least twenty-three thousand dying as a result.”
A common misunderstanding is that an individual can become immune to certain antibiotics. This is not accurate. It is actually the bacteria that became resistant, and not the individual. Horizontal gene transfer is responsible for the manifestation of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. There was a report published by Princeton University which stated, “Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) conferring resistance to many classes of antimicrobials has resulted in a worldwide epidemic of nosocomial and community infections caused by multidrug-resistant microorganisms.”(Warnes et al., 2012) Horizontal gene transfer is where a microorganism transfers DNA to another microorganism. Since bacteria that were not immune to the antibiotics were neutralized by the drug, only the immune bacteria were left to transfer their own DNA. It is survival of the fittest in its purest form. The antibiotics used against the pathogenic bacteria can be seen as a cause of environmental competition. The bacteria that had the mutation that allowed them to survive also allowed them to reproduce. They then pass on the resistance trait to their offspring, which in turn leads to a colony of antibiotic resistant microorganisms. One may ask where this natural selection of bacteria occurs.
The answer is anywhere a large population is overusing antibiotics.
India is one of the major victims of antibiotic resistance. Their high population density has led to a large amount of bacterial infections. This is due to a lack of sanitation, waste management, and access to clean water. One other driving factor is that antibiotics are not regulated, and anyone with enough money can have access to them. The overuse of these drugs has led to the discovery of bacteria with resistance to some of the most powerful antibiotics in medical science. Luckily this resistance is currently found in only harmless bacteria that are harboured in an estimated two hundred million citizens. This does not put an end to the concern. Biologists fear that the harmless bacterial may transfer genes with deadlier pathogenic bacteria. The events after a gene transfer in the right conditions could be catastrophic. Picture a deadly disease with no know medical treatment in one of the heaviest populated areas. It could only end badly.