The disposal of chemicals and antibiotics into our surrounding soil and water is slowly aiding the evolution of bacteria, as they are becoming increasingly resistant to the use of antibiotics, report Channel News Asia. Initially used to cure us of bacterial infections and to work together with our body's immunity to fight diseases, antibiotics are ironically slowly destroying us.

United Nations Report

The United Nations Report on 5 December 2017 states that this would mean that the world's population will have an increased risk of acquiring diseases that will no longer be curable through the use of antibiotics.

This includes our day-to-day activities such as playing in the fields, swimming in the oceans, and other ostensibly banal tasks. Gone will be the days when a 5-day prescription of antibiotics can cure our fever, cuts, or more serious illnesses.

Besides the disposal of antibiotics, people themselves are misusing antibiotics by taking them as they please. This includes people who do not complete the course of antibiotics, as prescribed by their doctors, and people who take it simply as a means to cure a non-bacterial infection.

With the advancement of technology, people are increasingly able to self-diagnose (even though it may not be accurate) and treat their own infections. Sometimes, general practitioners themselves, may even overprescribe these antibiotics as a first line of defense for any sign of infections before referring their patients to specialists.

A post-antibiotic era

Health researchers are concerned that this may cause humankind to return back to the past, when simple infections were difficult, if not impossible, to cure unless new antibiotics or vaccines are developed.

This is a result of resistant-bacteria's ability to transfer their resistance gene to another: either through passing it on to their future generations, or even mutating further into the DNA of a gene.

Currently, about seventy to eighty percent of the world's antibiotics that are consumed by man or are fed to animals and are excreted back into the environment. Germs, whether they display resistance or non-resistance to antibiotics, are also excreted into the environment. This mixture of germs and anti-bacterial agents found in disposal sites create excellent conditions for bacteria to grow and develop their resistance to antibiotics.

With new strains of bacteria, influenza, and diseases found in the world each day, it is an extremely worrying circumstance that we have in the world right now.
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