Antibiotics and painkillers

• • Antibiotics cure bacterial diseases by killing infective bacteria
• • Specific bacteria must be treated by specific antibiotics
• • Painkillers relieve symptoms of disease but do not kill pathogens
• • The use of antibiotics has greatly reduced the number of deaths from communicable diseases caused by bacteria
• • Antibiotics cannot kill viral pathogens
  • Viruses repduce using body cells
  • So, it is difficult to develop drugs to kill viruses without damaging body tissues
• Bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics:

  • Bactria can mutate which can cause resistance to an antibiotic
  • Some bacteria in an infection can be resistant to antibiotics
  • Treating infection will only kill non-resistant strains
  • Individual resistant bacteria will survive and reproduce, increasing population of resistant strain
  • The resistant strain can cause infection that cannot be treated
  • To slow down the rate of development of resistant strains, doctors must avoid over-prescribing antibiotics
  • Finishing the whole course of antibiotics is needed