Abstract:
Antibacterial agents were used long before people knew that infections were caused by bacteria, and were described in ancient Egypt, Greece and in the Roman empire. However, in modern medicine the ‘antibiotic revolution’ started in 1928 when Sir Alexander Fleming characterized the bactericidal effect of penicillin. With further effort from Ernst B Chain and Sir Howard Flory, mass production started in the early 1940s, and penicillin was then available for widespread commercial use. Fleming, Chain and Flory received the Nobel Prize in 1945. During World War II penicillin was significantly beneficial and saved many lives, and by the end of the war, penicillin was nicknamed “the wonder drug”. However, effectiveness and easy access also led to overuse, and it did not take long before some bacteria developed resistance. To overcome the resistance challenge pharmaceutical companies made large investments to find new types of antibiotics, and for a long time, the industry was able to develop new drugs to compensate for the older ones. This is not the situation now, and we have lost our competitive position against the bacteria (Read full abstract in the WAHVM 2020 proceedings https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/74425)
