A recent survey conducted describes the misconceptions about antibiotic tolerance as a "global health crisis" was found to be all over the place.
With the effort to put an end to the threats posed by antibiotics tolerance, The World Health Organization has surveyed a number of 10,000 people across 12 countries as part of the CDC's "Get Smart About Antibiotics Week,"
Surprisingly, although 64 per cent of the respondents claimed that antibiotics can cure common cold and flu and 32 per cent have noted that an individual should stop taking antibiotics once they feel better, Dr. Holly Phillips, CBS News medical contributor have identified both information as unsubstantiated.
As stated by Dr.Phillips, antibiotics have no effect against the common cold and flu, since they're both viruses. He says that the chances of increasing the risk of your infection not being cleared out properly becomes higher when you stop taking your antibiotics rather than completing the prescribed course.
As per CBS News, the survey found that 76 per cent of the respondents have misunderstood the concept of "resistance". They had a notion that antibiotic resistance meant the body was becoming resistant where in fact it's actually the bacteria that becomes resistant.
Furthermore, as Dr. Phillips explains it, if a bacterium has been exposed with antibiotics on a regular basis, they tend to adapt to it and evolve until antibiotics can no longer kill them. Thus making them clever microorganisms.
Dr. Phillips believes that this phenomenon should be considered as a global issue because a deadly and contagious kind of bacteria, known as superbugs are now emerging and this kind of bacteria are also known to be resistant to all antibiotics.
Currently, authorities are now taking a large scale initiative on the use of antibiotics for livestock as it has been lately found that 80 per cent of antibiotics used across the world was generated from animal feed and/or water for growth promotion and prevention of disease. Just last month, Jerry Brown, Governor of California has also passed a legislation to limit the use.
