Abstract
The threat of antibiotic resistance is growing at an alarming pace, perhaps more rapidly in developing countries. Aside from the abuse of antibiotics, a number of circumstances converge to this rapid growth and spread, ranging from the biological traits that bacteria deploy to face antibiotics, which we are still trying to understand, to regulatory and financial issues behind antibiotic abuse. And, aside from the more-difficult-to-cure side of resistance, which is bad enough, bacteria are evolving to be more competent to face environmental stress, which includes antibiotics, present and future ones. In developing countries, we face peculiarities that go from antibiotic self-prescription to poor sanitary conditions, even at hospitals, that foster the threat of particular multi-resistant pathogens that are not common in developed countries and against which no new antibiotics are being investigated. In addition to the local repercussions of these peculiarities upon resistance trends, it is important to realize that these can easily cross borders in this era of globalization. A worldwide strategy must be developed and enforced if we are to have a good start at the post-antibiotic era.
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Amábile-Cuevas, C.F. (2010). Global Perspectives of Antibiotic Resistance. In: Sosa, A., Byarugaba, D., Amábile-Cuevas, C., Hsueh, PR., Kariuki, S., Okeke, I. (eds) Antimicrobial Resistance in Developing Countries. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-89370-9_1
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