Despite the talk of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, sophomore journalism major Morgan Eichensehr was surprised when such an infection hit her family.

Several years ago, her mother developed flesh-eating Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria after a broken leg. It wreaked havoc on her mother’s leg, but the cause was even scarier: Eichensehr’s mother developed the resistant bacteria after taking repeated doses of medications for her leg that were strong enough to prevent the bacteria from responding to medications alone.

It’s a trend happening all over the country, and medical experts said the public and their doctors should take note of the dangers of overprescribing medications.

According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released in April about antibiotic resistance threats, more than 2 million people in the United States get antibiotic-resistant infections every year, and at least 23,000 people die from these infections.

Amy Sapkota, a biostatistics and epidemiology professor, said if a person has an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection, antibiotics are useless in treating the infection.

Herman Sintim, a biochemistry and chemistry professor, said there are a few ways that bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics. Already-resistant bacteria can pass on resistant genes when they reproduce, or spontaneous resistance from repeated drug dosages can occur.

If a person has antibiotic-resistant bacteria, Sintim said, the bacteria can be spread easily through contact with surfaces and even through the air.

Bacteria became trapped as Eichensehr’s mother’s leg healed. Although she took antibiotics to fight infection, the MRSA bacteria prevented the antibiotics from having any impact. The bacteria entered the bloodstream, causing more problems.

“It was just really awful,” Eichensehr said. “They were cutting out parts of her leg because there was a flesh-eating bacteria in it.”

Finally, she said, her mother had multi-drug IV antibiotic therapy, meaning she took an especially strong antibiotic to get rid of the infection — so strong, in fact, that she took it through a heart-line because it was too strong for the veins in her arm.

“She’s been fine since,” Eichensehr said.

She said her mother, who works at Union Memorial Hospital as a quality assurance manager, already knew about MRSA before getting it herself and was able to remain relatively matter-of-fact throughout the process.

“It was far less scary for all of us because she was a lot calmer about it,” Eichensehr wrote in a Facebook message. “I’m sure she was nervous that it had happened, but she kept a level head. She knew it would be fine and didn’t let us worry too much.”

Until numerous cases of resistance occur, Sintim said, the scientific community is unaware of the particular bacteria strain.

“By the time people become aware that there is a problem, it’s not possible to contain it anymore,” he said.

Sapkota said doctors often prescribe antibiotics because their patients request them, even in cases when the patients don’t have a bacterial infection.

“Giving somebody an antibiotic is not going to do anything against a virus,” she said. This would be an inappropriate use of antibiotics, she said, and would contribute to overprescription.

“We’re worried about any and all antibiotic use,” Sapkota said.

She added that patients should treat a virus by resting, drinking a lot of fluids and eating healthy food. But patients prefer to ask for an antibiotic rather than do these things, and that’s a problem, she said.

Sintim said it’s highly probable that one year after an antibiotic has been introduced into clinics and prescribed to many patients, there will be some resistant bacteria.

“Typically, 15 years is adequate for the resistant strain to reach all the continents of the world due to global travel,” he said.

Previously, when populations became resistant to an antibiotic, researchers just developed a new one, but Sintim said there are a few reasons why the probability of developing new drugs is very low now. It doesn’t make financial sense to invest in the development of new antibiotics when there is antibiotic resistance, he said, and many classes of antibiotics have already been discovered, so it’s hard to find new ones.

“It paints a very grim picture,” Sintim said.

One solution, he said, could be for governments worldwide to “come together to fund antibiotic research for humanity.”