Plant medicine in the fight against antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic resistance is now a global problem. More than 6,000 deaths a year could be caused by a 30 per cent fall in the effectiveness of antibiotics in the US, a report in The Lancet suggests.
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According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Global Report on Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance 2014, Antimicrobial Resistance has become a serious public health problem as health systems can hardly find treatment options for common infections.
Data provided by 114 countries indicate that seven common bacteria are known to be responsible for serious diseases from bloodstream infections to gonorrhea, while significant gaps have been found to exist in tracking of antibiotic resistance.
Available statistics indicate that about 440,000 new cases of multidrug resistance tuberculosis (MDR-TB) emerge annually, to the extent that standard treatments become ineffective, with infections persisting and spreading to others, causing at least 150 deaths, with Extensive drug-resistant tuberculosis having been reported in 64 countries.
Professor Ramanan Laxminarayan, Director of the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in Washington DC, said antibiotics were the bedrock of modern medicine but their reduced effectiveness was a "significant challenge".
He explained, "The danger is that antibiotic resistance is squeezing the value out of modern medicine."
He said antibiotic resistance was already killing newborns in the developing world and mostly elderly people in the developed world.
He urged public health experts to come up with "new strategies for the prevention and control of antibiotic resistance at national and international levels".
Herbal medicine as the solution
I believe herbal medicines could be the new solution to this resistance. Herbal antibiotics have long been used by herbal healers to ward off colds and flu, clear infections and speed wound healing. Our ancestors also had a solution for healing, using antibiotics from nature and it would be good to remind ourselves what these antibiotics are and possibly think about using them in case of an illness.
Now, they may be moving back into the mainstream as an alternative to fight bacteria that have become resistant to synthetic antibiotics.
An antibiotic is a drug used to treat infections caused by bacteria and other microorganisms. Originally, an antibiotic was a substance produced by one microorganism that selectively inhibits the growth of another. Synthetic antibiotics, usually chemically related to natural antibiotics, have since been produced that accomplish comparable tasks.
Factors that promote drug resistance
Antibiotic resistance is caused mostly as the result of misuse of antimicrobial medicines. Thus, when patients fail to take the full course of a prescribed antimicrobial or when poor quality antimicrobials are used, resistant microorganisms are likely to emerge and spread.
Other factors that promote antibiotic resistance are poor hygiene and overcrowding which accelerate the spread of resistance in hospitals, poor infection prevention and control practices and lack of or limited availability of tools and systems for the monitoring and evaluation of antibiotic resistance.
That notwithstanding, herbal medicines can play a vital role in helping to lessen or reduce microbial tolerance. Most of us think of antibiotics as liquid or pills you pick up at the pharmacy, but these compounds were originally developed from naturally occurring sources. Plants have antibiotic substances serving a beneficial role around their root systems. Many common foods and herbs such as honey, garlic, onions, licorice root, ginger and sage act as antibiotics.
Our ancestors also had a solution for healing, using antibiotics from nature and it would be good to remind ourselves what these antibiotics are and possibly think about using them in case of an illness.
Garlic can fight simple infections such as common cold, pushing the germs away before they have a chance to disrupt your life. Using the allicin that it contains, garlic protects against yeast, parasites, bacteria and more. Therefore, more use of garlic in diets indirectly prevents microbial infections.
Research indicates that Virgin Coconut Oil has natural phytotherapeutic properties of anti-fungal and microbial and is packed with antioxidants you can’t find anywhere else in nature. It also boosts your immunity and helps fight infections.
Furthermore, many products on the Ghanaian market that are indicated for bacterial and microbial infections mostly contain some of these plants. Vernonia amygdalina, Astonia boonei and Spathodia campanulata are plants known to have antibacterial activities.
Many pharmaceutical antibiotics are isolated chemical constituents. They are one compound / one chemical –e.g. penicillin is penicillin, tetracycline is tetracycline and so on. This makes them easier for bacteria to adapt to and counteract. In contrast, herbs are much more complicated. Garlic has over 33 sulfur compounds, 17 amino acids and a dozen other compounds. Yarrow has over 120 identified compounds. In plants, the whole appears to be more than the sum of its parts. The different compounds work together, often to produce better than expected results.
Saving the situation
Antibiotic resistance is a genetic trait, but unlike these traits, antibiotic resistance transfers very quickly between one bacteria and another. Bacteria communicate with each other extremely rapidly, and through this communication they are able to transfer survival traits.
Essentially, the need for antibiotic medications should be reduced by preventing infections. And to prevent infections, there is the need to submit oneself to vaccination, and practise better hygiene while access to clean water and sanitation must be ensured. Antibiotics should not be shared with others; neither should left-over prescriptions be used. Again, antibiotics should be used only when they are prescribed and, where prescribed, the full prescription must be completed even if one feels better.
Furthermore, the ultimate recommendation is for research to be focused on herbal antibiotics to be developed to combat this canker of antibacterial resistance since antibacterial infection at a point in one’s lifetime is inevitable. Moreover, mimicking of phytochemical structures of herbs by the organisms are difficult, hence its sensitivity.
The writer is President, Herbal Foundation of Ghana.