Consumer Information

The Wisconsin Antibiotic Resistance Network (WARN) is a coalition of Wisconsin health care providers, professional organizations, and public health agencies concerned about antibiotic resistance and inappropriate antibiotic use.

What is antibiotic resistance?

Antibiotic resistance is the ability of bacteria or other microbes to resist the effects of an antibiotic. Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria change in some way that reduces or eliminates the effectiveness of drugs, chemicals, or other agents designed to cure or prevent infections. The bacteria survive and continue to multiply causing more harm.

Antibiotic resistance has been called one of the world's most pressing public health problems. Over the last decade, almost every type of bacteria has become stronger and less responsive to antibiotic treatment when it is really needed. These antibiotic-resistant bacteria can quickly spread to family members, schoolmates, and co-workers - threatening the community with a new strain of infectious disease that is more difficult to cure and more expensive to treat. For this reason, antibiotic resistance is among CDC's top concerns.

Antibiotic resistance can cause significant danger and suffering for children and adults who have common infections, once easily treatable with antibiotics. Microbes can develop resistance to specific medicines. A common misconception is that a person's body becomes resistant to specific drugs. However, it is microbes, not people, that become resistant to the drugs.

If a microbe is resistant to many drugs, treating the infections it causes can become difficult or even impossible. Someone with an infection that is resistant to a certain medicine can pass that resistant infection to another person. In this way, a hard-to-treat illness can be spread from person to person. In some cases, the illness can lead to serious disability or even death.

Information above is from the CDC Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work About Antibiotic Resistance page.

The Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics explains what antibiotic resistance is and why it is a problem. The site also includes actions you can take to limit the development of antibiotic resistance.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offers a brochure explaining what antibiotic resistance is and why antibiotics aren't the answer for every illness.