Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word that differs from the other three in the position of primary stress in each of the following questions.
Antibiotics have been responsible for saving the lives of millions of patients. But this success has come at a price. The growing resistance of many bacterial strains to the curative effects of antibiotics is such a concern that it has been referred to, in some quarters, as the greatest threat to our continued existence on earth. We have become careless not only in our reliance on the quick fix of medicine but also in taking the availability of antibiotics for granted, using them incorrectly. This has given rise to a new form of superbacteria, a type which is able to fight off antibiotic treatment with ease.
Although their resistance to antibiotics has been built up over a long period of time, bacteria actually replicate extraordinarily quickly, and any resistance developed is also duplicated as they divide. In addition, those bacteria carrying resistance genes happen to spread those genes further via 'horizontal gene transfer'. What makes the spread of these strains more difficult to control is that it occurs in a cyclical process. In the case of humans, when a person becomes infected and the resistant bacteria set up home in the gut, the sufferer has two choices: look for help or stay at home. In seeking medical assistance, whether through an appointment to visit their local doctor, or taking themselves to hospital, they contaminate other patients, later to be discharged and sent home. The resistant bacteria then spread out into the local community. This is also the end result if the infected person decides not to seek any medical assistance at all: they keep the bacteria at home and allow them to breed without treatment.
We now face a global emergency as antibiotic-resistant bacteria are beginning to emerge more rapidly and frequently than ever before. Not only has this created a potential health crisis but it is also unlikely to be tackled any time soon, as the powerful pharmaceutical companies are primarily driven by profit and see little benefit in researching and creating new antibiotics. It simply does not work on the balance sheet, and so it falls to governments and individuals around the world to find ways to manage the crisis. Coordinating such efforts will not be easy.
