You may not feel it right now, but antimicrobial resistance is a growing problem. In fact, according to World Health Organization, a huge number of worked on by our scientists and health experts may become unusable as bacteria become more resistant to medications.
In the United States, at least 2 million are affected by this medical issue and more than 200,000 people die because of it every year, according to Centers for Disease Prevention and Control.
Antimicrobial resistance is a huge problem for two reasons: One, this means that the drugs that used to kill them are no longer effective. Second, there's not enough number of drugs that can be used as an alternative.
Why do we develop this resistance in the first place? There are many possible reasons. First is the unnecessary intake of antibiotics. Second is the wrong intake (that's why it's highly recommended to strictly follow the doctor's prescription). Microbes, like every living thing, simply evolve, and they develop ways to make themselves immune to the effects of drugs.
The new discovery of a potential powerful anti-microbial drug, therefore, creates a lot of excitement for the health community, and these microbes are found in the most uncommon place: dirt.
This drug is called teixobactin. It has the ability to potentially cure even the most severe types of bacteria-resistant infections without any side effect. Best of all, the chances of bacteria becoming resistant to it are very small. It may take about 3 decades before they do so, and hopefully, by then, new drugs to combat these bad bacteria will be around.
However, the drug has been tested on mice only. It still has to be tried on humans, and even if it becomes successful, it will take at least 6 years before it is commercially available.
Regardless, it's something we can look forward to-and cling hope on.