Reemerging pathogens

There has been a relentless emergence of antibacterial and antiviral resistance capability among familiar, established human pathogens. The problem of bacterial resistance to previously reliably curative drugs has gone far beyond the simple strategy of switching antibiotics. Examples abound, including as an extreme case the fact that the haunting specter of enterococcal resistance even to vancomycin has become real, and the usefulness of generations of new antibacterial agents can be negated within months of their introduction. In fact, among the great bacterial infectious diseases, only syphilis remains fully susceptible to straightforward treatment protocols; for all the rest, reports are proliferating of microbial resistance against long lists of antibiotics.