I agree that we humans don't have to expect bacteria to always evolve methods to resist our medical interventions.
However, I think the most effective thing, maybe the only, we can do is actually look at the process of bacterial evolution.
That is, unless antibiotics are wildly over-used and human pathogens are concentrated in one place facing constant medical intervention, human medical intervention is going to be a very small, unimportant part of bacterial evolution.
Unfortunately, antibiotics are widely over used and pathogens are concentrated in poor administered hospitals.
If we stop these practices and we could stop these practices, then antibiotic-resistant bacteria would have little evolutionary incentive to exist.
> Unfortunately, antibiotics are widely over used and pathogens are concentrated in poor administered hospitals.
Some countries have people who sell incomplete courses of anti biotics, without a prescription.[1] Someone can buy a few days worth of pills - enough to get them over the illness, but also enough to promote anti biotic resistance.
For example, people in India die from pnumonia (largest killer of children in India) and these people need to use antibiotics. They often can't afford a complete course. And then other people misuse antibiotics for simple diarrhoea, which isn't helped with antibiotics.
> The bacterial disease burden in India is among the highest in the world1; consequently, antibiotics will play a critical role in limiting morbidity and mortality in the country. As a marker of disease burden, pneumonia causes an estimated 410,000 deaths in India each year2, and it is the number-one killer of children3. Many of these deaths occur because patients do not have access to life-saving antibiotics when and where these are needed. At the other extreme, antibiotics are used in situations where these cannot be expected to improve the patient's condition, particularly as treatment for the common cold and uncomplicated cases of diarrhoea (which are appropriately treated with oral rehydration therapy).
That is, unless antibiotics are wildly over-used and human pathogens are concentrated in one place facing constant medical intervention, human medical intervention is going to be a very small, unimportant part of bacterial evolution.
Unfortunately, antibiotics are widely over used and pathogens are concentrated in poor administered hospitals.
If we stop these practices and we could stop these practices, then antibiotic-resistant bacteria would have little evolutionary incentive to exist.