Drug-resistant organisms are waging war on one of humanity’s most widely used health measures: anti-biotics.

Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease expert warned in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Tuesday that these organisms are already in Canada.

He was responding to a new report from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists, warning about the spread of “nightmare bacteria.”

“Antibiotics are an incredible tool. They’ve saved countless lives,” he said, but warned about the dangers of over using the drugs.

“We need to have appropriate stewardship over them,” he said, adding they’re “used and abused” every day.

“Nightmare bacteria,” or “super bugs,” are terms used to describe bacteria, fungi, or other pathogens that evolve to resist antibiotics. That makes them harder for medical professionals to combat.

When organisms interact with antibiotics but are not entirely destroyed, it gives them a chance to develop resistance to those drugs.

“We know the bacteria can mutate and change in such a way where the antibiotics are no longer lethal, and it’s been an arms race with humans creating newer antibiotics and bacteria creating resistance to those,” Bogoch explained.

“And we’re going to lose the arms race every time.”

He pointed to the global agriculture industry, and specifically livestock from pigs to sheep to fish, as the primary area where antibiotics are overused.

“About 70 per cent of (antibiotic use) is in agriculture,” he said. “From an agricultural standpoint, it enables animals to grow bigger, but it obviously has significant detrimental effects in the creation of antimicrobial resistance.”

Bogoch highlighted the “One Health” concept — the idea that health care doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Human and animal health are linked. As the World Health Organization explains, “the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and interdependent.”

Over-reliance on antibiotics in animals can give organisms a chance to develop resistance, Bogoch warned, saying those resistant organisms can then jump from animals to humans.

Deadly diseases evolving

Bogoch mentioned HIV and tuberculosis as two illnesses that can evolve capacity to resist drugs, making them significantly harder to cure, especially if health professionals do not have access to sophisticated laboratory equipment.

Tuberculosis kills “around a million (people) a year,” he said, adding “drug resistant tuberculosis in particular is a tough one.”

The World Health Organization put 2023’s death toll at 1.25 million people, with almost 11 million people infected with the disease that year.

“Worldwide, TB has probably returned to being the world’s leading cause of death from a single infectious agent,” reads the World Health Organization’s website, also calling TB “a major cause of deaths related to antimicrobial resistance.”

Canada reported 2,217 cases of TB in 2023. Over 10 per cent of those cases were drug resistant.

One concern for Dr. Bogoch is Tuberculosis’ ability to evolve into resistant strains. He noted MDR (multiple drug resistant) and XDR (extensively drug resistant) TB strains, that can resist different medications.

“Many of the cases are in low-resource settings or maybe delays in diagnostics,“ Bogoch said.

There may be challenges accessing patient treatments.”

It is especially challenging to keep TB at bay in low- and middle-income countries, he said.

The World Health Organization reports that ending the TB epidemic by 2030 is a target for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

TB drug resistance in 2023 was low and consistent with overall trends, the Public Health Agency of Canada reported this year.

That agency works with the federal, provincial, territorial governments, and Indigenous partners to work towards the elimination of TB, “Together, we can end TB,” their website reads.