A Growing Health Threat – Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria ESBL
Posted by asapp33 in EnvironmentThe antibiotic-resistant bacteria Extended Spectrum Beta Lactamase (ESBL) is killing people. Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamases (ESBLs) are actually enzymes produced by certain types of bacteria. The enzymes act as an immunological defense that makes the bacteria resistant to the very antibiotics commonly used to treat them.
ESBL is joining the widely-spread MRSA and other resistant bacteria in the alphabet soup of deadly infections that are attacking and killing people all over the world. An October 2007 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, noted there were close to 100,000 cases of invasive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in the United States in 2005, which lead to more than 18,600 deaths. Compare that figure to the 17,000 deaths from HIV/AIDS in the same year.
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