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Aurelija Žvirblienė, a professor and immunologist at the VU Center for Life Sciences, warned that it would soon be possible to stop receiving treatment for bacterial diseases.
“Of course, Covid is in first place now, but we must bear in mind that another big problem that the World Health Organization has identified as a global threat to humanity is the growing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. And it may happen that we soon have no way to treat bacterial infections.
Bacteria have certain mechanisms in which they avoid antibiotics and are even capable of exchanging genes and acquiring new resistance. And infections, especially in hospitals, are a big problem because they are multifaceted, ”he told a conference on business science and innovation.
Develop antibodies to help detect resistance more effectively
The researcher said that currently this resistance is determined by traditional microbiological methods, but the innovations that are being developed would help to solve the problem more effectively.
“Now this is done simply by ‘seeding’ the bacteria and looking at the environment in which the antibiotics are surviving or molecular research is being done, which is also quite complex,” explained A. Žvirblienė.
To this end, the immunologist said that a Eureka project was being developed to develop methods to detect bacterial resistance to antibiotics.
“The idea is to create tools, that is, antibodies, that allow to quickly determine the resistance of a particular bacterium, because immunological methods that use antibodies are convenient because they can even be done quickly and visually.
For example, a pregnancy test, which is done very quickly, in 15 minutes, is an immunological method based on the use of antibodies. “We plan to apply this principle to develop antibodies against these bacterial resistance factors,” he said.
It is emphasized that this will be a “right next to the patient” diagnosis, when it will be possible to take samples and arrive in 15-30 minutes. have an answer on how bacteria react to a particular antibiotic.
Although the project has just started, A. Žvirblienė emphasized that in 2023. Results are expected.
Excellent conditions for the rebirth of forgotten diseases.
The portal tv3.lt recalls that doctors have repeatedly warned that climate change, a small world created by intensive travel, anti-vaccination moods prevail in society and the incorrect use of antibiotics today provide excellent conditions for resurgence and seemingly forgotten infectious diseases.
As mentioned, antibiotic resistance is identified as one of the top ten threats to global health.
“People have faced new problems with antibiotics for many years (the same goes for antiviral drugs). Microorganisms have this property: if they have the ability to spread and multiply, they will. And when you study bacteria, you can see clearly They acquire resistance to antibiotics faster than they develop.
In addition, livestock consume more than 50 percent. of all antibiotics in the world, but the same antibiotics, the same microorganisms can be found in both animals and humans ”, said prof. Saulius Čaplinskas.
As an example, when talking about bacterial resistance to antibiotics, the head of the ULAC presented the situation of tuberculosis.
“We can see very well what happened when not enough attention has been paid to TB treatment so far. In Lithuania, as we know, there are some of the worst indicators of TB incidence, especially drug-resistant TB and tuberculosis. multiple.
However, drug-resistant TB did not appear out of nowhere, it was caused by the same people who used antibiotics incorrectly, without following the regimen. The same is true of other microorganisms, especially those that are spread in medical facilities. This is expected to be a great challenge in the future ”, explained the interlocutor.
At the same time, he added that the risk of infectious diseases is also caused by air, water pollution and poor diet.
“We are constantly emphasizing the need for adequate control of hot and cold water in the supply system and its control. In other cases, cases of legionellosis will start, it can be recalled that recently individual deaths have been recorded as a result,” recalled S Čaplinskas.
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