Non-antibiotic treatment for infectious diseases.

The abuse and uncontrolled use of antibiotics has resulted in the emergence and spread of resistant bacteria. The utility of conventional antibiotics for the treatment of bacterial infections has become increasingly strained due to increased rates of resistance coupled with reduced rates of development of new agents. As a result, multidrug-resistant, extensively drug-resistant, and pan-drug-resistant bacterial strains are now frequently encountered. This has led to fears of a "post-antibiotic era" in which many bacterial infections could be untreatable. Alternative non-antibiotic treatment strategies need to be explored to ensure that a robust pipeline of effective therapies is available to clinicians. The new therapeutic approaches for bacterial infections (beyond antibiotics) may provide a way to extend the usefulness of current antibiotics in an era of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial infections.