Penicillin was first used in the 1940s to treat gonorrhea infections produced by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. In 1984, according to the CDC, fewer than 1% of gonorrhea infections were caused by penicillin-resistant N. gonorrhoeae. By 1990, more than 10% of cases were penicillin-resistant, and a few years later the level of resistance was at greater than 95%. Almost every year the CDC issues new treatment guidelines for gonorrhea that identify the recommended antibiotic drugs and dosages.

What are the short-term implications of these frequent changes for physicians and clinics that treat sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhea and for individuals infected with gonorrhea?

Video transcript

Hello, everyone and welcome to today's video. So in recent years, an increasing number of infections caused by antibiotic resistance. Bacteria have been reported. A team of researchers conducted a study to determine the prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria in a community. They collected bacterial samples from 100 individuals and tested them for antibiotic resistance against five commonly prescribed antibiotics. The results of the study showed that 50 individuals had bacterial infections that were resistant to at least one antibiotic of these 50 individuals. 20 had infections that were resistant to two or more antibiotics. The researchers concluded that antibiotic resistance is becoming more common in the community and that new strategies are needed to prevent and treat bacterial infections. What is the consequence of increasing antibiotic resistance? Now, let's go over each of the answer choices that we are provided here and analyze them so that we may solve the problem. First of all, we have answer choice. A which is increased mortality. Well, mortality here is going to be referring to death. So if we have these bacterial infections, remember that antibiotics are going to help us combat or battle these bacterial infections if we don't have anything to protect us against them. If they develop a resistance against these methods, that we have to protect ourselves against them, then there will be an increase of deaths among the population. Therefore, increasing mortality. This is a true statement. Let's move on. We have b higher health costs. Well, if we don't have antibiotics to prescribe to people, they're definitely going to become sicker more often. And when they become sick, they're going to be hospitalized. Therefore, it will definitely increase the cost of health for many individuals. This is a true statement. So we're not going to cancel it out and then we have see longer hospital stays. So if they become hospitalized and we don't have anything to provide resistance in combat a bacterial infection, it will definitely mean that many individuals take longer to recover, meaning longer hospital stays. This is a true statement as well. So we're not going to cancel it out. Then we have d all options are correct, which is actually going to be your correct statement because we were not able to cancel out any of our answer choices. So we're going to highlight answer choice. D all options are correct as a final answer to this question. I really hope this helped and I hope to see you on the next video.