Ethical challenges in the era of bacterial resistance: the threat of indiscriminate use of antibiotics

Abstract

The overuse of antibiotics has led to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, posing an ethical and public health challenge. Bacterial resistance has become a real threat to the health of populations. It renders treatments for infectious diseases ineffective, increasing the risk of complications during medical interventions and raising the risk of exposure of the population to potentially fatal infections. It is worth mentioning that bacterial resistance is entirely preventable, so it is everyone's responsibility to make conscious use of antibiotics.

This article reviews the basic concepts of bacterial resistance and then makes a bioethical reflection on the prescription and use of antibiotics.

A non-systematic bibliographic review was carried out in databases such as Pubmed, Google Scholar, and Scopus to identify basic concepts of bacterial resistance. In addition, a database review of bioethics articles was carried out to create a bioethical reflection on the prescription and correct use of antibiotics.

The abuse of antibiotics and the resulting bacteria resistant to antibiotics poses an ethical dilemma involving both the medical community and the entire society.