Drug Resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and its Impact on Modern Medicine

Author(s): Ifrah Amjad, Saba Riaz

Throughout the history, there has been a constant war between host and microorganisms. Microorganisms have noteworthy amplitude to offer resistance to antimicrobial agents and becoming an awful public health plight. The rising probability of infections is attributed to the ability of microbes conferring drug resistance. Drug resistance is a horrible capacity of a microbe to continue growing even in the presence of drug that is normally destined to limit its growth. As a result, there is a dwindling effect on the treatment efficacy to a disease. Drug resistance is awarded at the lethal concentration to a microbe and that particular concentration should be non-lethal to a human being. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a greatest discovery of Robert Koch and it offers resistance to first-line and second-line antibiotics. Apprehending the mode of action of resistance for tuberculosis is crucial for advancement in the field of medical microbiology and for developing death-dealing antimicrobial drugs to minimize infections and mortality. Drug resistance is a major concern as it can lead to treatment failure and adjoins burden on healthcare costs. Next-generation sequencing technologies have helped to comprehend drug resistance. In this paper, we present the attributes of drug resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and its impact on public health and challenges to modern medicine along with its epidemiology, mode of action, clinical factors and multi-drug resistance.