Emerging Modalities In Mitigation Of Antimicrobial Resistance

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the deadliest threats to global public health. This book focuses on dynamics in the landscape of AMR while informing about the latest technologies and strategies to mitigate it. The menace of AMR in different niches, routes of penetration across various domains, socio-economic impact, and the need for a 'One Health' approach in mitigating AMR has been emphasized. Factors involved in AMR, underlying mechanisms, and pharmacometrics in developing antimicrobials are highlighted. Emphasis is given to emerging technologies that are sustainable, scalable, and applicable to the global community, such as big data analytics, bioactive agents, phage therapy, and nanotechnology. The book also explores current and alternative treatment strategies to combat AMR, emphasizing the use of nanoparticles to target pathogens and as a viable alternative to antibiotics.

Antibiotic resistance is neither a surprising nor a new phenomenon. It is an increasingly worrisome situation, however, because resistance is growing and accelerating while the world's tools for combating it decrease in power and number. In addition, the cost of the problem--especially of multidrug resistance--in terms of money, mortality, and disability are also rising. This book summarizes a workshop on antimicrobial resistance held by the Forum on Emerging Infections. The goal of the Forum on Emerging Infections is to provide an opportunity for representatives of academia, industry, government, and professional and interest groups to examine and discuss scientific and policy dilemmas of common interest that are specifically related to research on and the prevention, detection, and management of emerging infections. Organized as a topic-by-topic synthesis of presentations and exchanges during the workshop, the book highlights lessons learned, delineates a range of pivotal issues and the problems they raise, and proposes some simplified ideas about possible responses.

Antimicrobials -- a set of agents which includes antibiotics, synthetic anti-effective drugs, antibacterial agents, and disinfectants -- had had significant beneficial effects on public health, medicine, animal husbandry, agriculture, and food processing. By making many diseases and infections, which were once difficult to treat and often lethal, readily curable, antibiotics have revolutionised human and veterinary medicine. In agricultural use, besides treating specific infections in animals, antibiotics are also given to farm animals to speed their growth, to promote the efficient use of the feed, and to be sprayed on crops as pesticides. The widespread use of antimicrobials, however, is causing some to lose their ability to control disease. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves antimicrobials for human and veterinary use if the manufacturer of the antimicrobial has met all FDA's safety and efficacy requirements. FDA's approval system is not designed to respond to the development of resistant strains, subsequent to approval of the product for human drugs. However, the federal government does run several surveillance programs designed to estimate the scope of the resistance problem, supports research directed at discovering new antibiotics or strategies to circumvent resistance, and promotes voluntary activities on the part of practitioners, consumers, and agricultural producers to reduce the risk. Legislative concerns regarding policies to control antimicrobial resistance focus on whether policy actions should seek to influence the root causes of the problem, encourage new treatments, or address its symptoms. Defining appropriate policy responses is particularly difficult given the complexity of the microbial resistance problem, the lack of data to assess the problems, and the disagreement over the seriousness of the extent of the health threat to resistance. Use of antimicrobials in human medicine, for example, is thought to be the primary source of resistance and some wonder whether the government should regulate such uses. Included in the debate are the uses of antibiotics in the agricultural sector. The conflict there is over how much antibiotic use, both for treating disease and promoting growth, in food-producing animals contributes to resistant strains of bacteria. FDA has proposed a framework in its animal drug approval system to ensure some tracking of resistance development if it takes place.

This book serves as an excellent comprehensive material covering the current understandings and updates on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the use of medicinal plant resources for tackling it. Chapters cover important aspects of AMR and strategies to address this threatening issue with medicinal plants and their resources. One health perspectives for addressing AMR have been presented for the readers. Antimicrobial medicinal plant therapeutic resources including crude extracts, active fractions, pure molecules and essential oils, besides using them as functionalizing agents for nano-antimicrobials have been covered. Further, plant endophytes as a source of antimicrobial compounds have been discussed. Chapters cover both the bactericidal as well as resistance-reversal (or potentiating/ combinatorial therapies) potencies of medicinal plant resources. The book also focuses on how medicinal plant resources effectively target major determinants of AMR. Use of metabolomics in understanding and targeting AMR mechanisms and identifying potent phyto-therapeutics has been discussed as well. The book is a valuable read for both experienced and younger researchers working in the field of AMR and related fields in biomedicine, pharmacy, and clinical research.

This volume summarizes and updates information about antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance (AMR)/antibiotic resistant genes (ARG) production, including their entry routes in soil, air, water and sediment, their use in hospital and associated waste, global and temporal trends in use and spread of antibiotics, AMR and ARG. Antimicrobial/antibiotic resistance genes due to manure and agricultural waste applications, bioavailability, biomonitoring, and their Epidemiological, ecological and public health effects. The book addresses the antibiotic and AMR/ARG risk assessment and treatment technologies, for managing antibiotics and AMR/ARG impacted environments The book's expert contributions span 20 chapters, and offer a comprehensive framework for better understanding and analyzing the environmental and social impacts of antibiotics and AMR/ARGs. Readers will have access to recent and updated models regarding the interpretation of antibiotics and AMR/ARGs in environment and biomonitoring studies, and will learn about the management options require to appropriately mitigate environmental contaminants and pollution. The book will be of interest to students, teachers, researchers, policy makers and environmental organizations.

In the past half century, deadly disease outbreaks caused by novel viruses of animal origin - Nipah virus in Malaysia, Hendra virus in Australia, Hantavirus in the United States, Ebola virus in Africa, along with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), several influenza subtypes, and the SARS (sudden acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) coronaviruses - have underscored the urgency of understanding factors influencing viral disease emergence and spread. Emerging Viral Diseases is the summary of a public workshop hosted in March 2014 to examine factors driving the appearance, establishment, and spread of emerging, re-emerging and novel viral diseases; the global health and economic impacts of recently emerging and novel viral diseases in humans; and the scientific and policy approaches to improving domestic and international capacity to detect and respond to global outbreaks of infectious disease. This report is a record of the presentations and discussion of the event.

Recent Trends in Biofilm Science and Technology helps researchers working on fundamental aspects of biofilm formation and control conduct biofilm studies and interpret results. The book provides a remarkable amount of knowledge on the processes that regulate biofilm formation, the methods used, monitoring characterization and mathematical modeling, the problems/advantages caused by their presence in the food industry, environment and medical fields, and the current and emergent strategies for their control. Research on biofilms has progressed rapidly in the last decade due to the fact that biofilms have required the development of new analytical tools and new collaborations between biologists, engineers and mathematicians. Presents an overview of the process of biofilm formation and its implications Provides a clearer understanding of the role of biofilms in infections Creates a foundation for further research on novel control strategies Updates readers on the remarkable amount of knowledge on the processes that regulate biofilm formation

Antibiotics represent one of the most successful forms of therapy in medicine. But the efficiency of antibiotics is compromised by the growing number of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Antibiotic resistance, which is implicated in elevated morbidity and mortality rates as well as in the increased treatment costs, is considered to be one of the major global public health threats (www.who.int/drugresistance/en/) and the magnitude of the problem recently prompted a number of international and national bodies to take actions to protect the public (http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/health_consumer/docs/road-map-amr_en.pdf: http://www.who.int/drugresistance/amr_global_action_plan/en/; http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/carb_national_strategy.pdf). Understanding the mechanisms by which bacteria successfully defend themselves against the antibiotic assault represent the main theme of this eBook published as a Research Topic in Frontiers in Microbiology, section of Antimicrobials, Resistance, and Chemotherapy. The articles in the eBook update the reader on various aspects and mechanisms of antibiotic resistance. A better understanding of these mechanisms should facilitate the development of means to potentiate the efficacy and increase the lifespan of antibiotics while minimizing the emergence of antibiotic resistance among pathogens.

Legionnaires' disease, a pneumonia caused by the Legionella bacterium, is the leading cause of reported waterborne disease outbreaks in the United States. Legionella occur naturally in water from many different environmental sources, but grow rapidly in the warm, stagnant conditions that can be found in engineered water systems such as cooling towers, building plumbing, and hot tubs. Humans are primarily exposed to Legionella through inhalation of contaminated aerosols into the respiratory system. Legionnaires' disease can be fatal, with between 3 and 33 percent of Legionella infections leading to death, and studies show the incidence of Legionnaires' disease in the United States increased five-fold from 2000 to 2017. Management of Legionella in Water Systems reviews the state of science on Legionella contamination of water systems, specifically the ecology and diagnosis. This report explores the process of transmission via water systems, quantification, prevention and control, and policy and training issues that affect the incidence of Legionnaires' disease. It also analyzes existing knowledge gaps and recommends research priorities moving forward.