Lebanese doctors are warning about the consequences of an alarming increase in bacteria that is resistant to the strongest antibiotics, with a report by the World Health Organization highlighting startling rates of resistance in Lebanon and worldwide.
Bacteria can adapt and become resistant to antibiotics if the medication is abused.
In Lebanon, over half of E. coli bacteria were found to be resistant to fluoroquinolones, an important type of antibiotic, while up to a third of bacteria in a 3,800 sample study between 2010 and 2011 were found to be resistant to a type of third-generation antibiotic.
AUBMC itself has been distributing brochures intended for physicians and health care professionals on antibiotic resistance since the early '90s, profiling bacteria that were beginning to exhibit signs of resistance to medication.
But despite awareness efforts, Araj said, bacteria are growing increasingly resistant to antibiotics.
The results, which were reproduced in the WHO report, found a rise in resistance to antibiotics among various types of bacteria, including E. coli and microbes responsible for infecting patients with pneumonia.
111isuse and abuse" of antibiotics in Lebanon is also benefiting microbes, allowing them to adapt to antibiotics and develop resistance.
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