LONDON (Islamweb & News Agencies) - As fear of anthrax swept the United States, scientists warned Friday that overuse of antibiotics could lead to the build-up of superbugs and possibly a drug-resistant strain of the germ warfare agent. (Read photo caption below)
``Indiscriminate use of antibiotics can induce resistance in B anthracis and other organisms,'' said British scientist Nicholas Beeching, referring to the spore-forming bacterium that causes the illness.
It has yet to happen, Beeching added in an interview, but there is a possibility it could.
The lecturer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in northern England said inducing antimicrobial resistance on a mass scale would be an even greater triumph for whomever is behind the anthrax scares in the United States.
Bacteria that cause deadly infections such as pneumonia and meningitis can build up a resistance to antibiotics. The emergence of superbugs, which are resistant to the most powerful drugs, is a growing problem worldwide.
The rising number of anthrax cases in the United States has caused people who have no symptoms of the illness to request antibiotics.
Beeching and Professor C. Anthony Hart, a medical microbiologist at the University of Liverpool, said only people with a serious risk of infection should be prescribed drugs.
PHOTO CAPTION:
U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Steve Baluyot of the Biological Defense Research Directorate (BDRD), Naval Medical Research Center, Bethesda, Maryland, loads unknown samples into capillary tubes for a Rugidized Advance Pathogen Identification Device (RAPID) analysis at the New York Department of Health, Public Health Laboratories, New York, October 25, 2001. Baluyot is part of a joint Department of Defense team made up of Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel who are assisting the CDC to analyze the overwhelming volume of evidence being gathered in the New York area following attacks at the World Trade Center on September 11, and the current anthrax related incidents. (Jim Varhegyi-U.S. Air Force/Reuters )
- Nov 01 6:28 PM ET