Antibiotic resistance

• what is antibiotic resistance

  the ability of bacteria to survive exposure to antibiotics
• how does antibiotic resistance occur

  • bacteria have random mutations in their DNA
  • when these bacteria are exposed to antibiotics, only the non-resistant one dies
  • resistant bacteria survive and reproduce, increasing the population of resistant bacteria
  • this means antibiotics no longer work
• what is a risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria

  the patient is still infected and can pass on the resistant bacteria to others
• what is a superbug

  bacteria that is resistant to lots of bacteria (eg: MRSA)
• what are the problems with antibiotic resistance

  • doctors don't prescribe antibiotics when needed or they prescribe them at the wrong time, meaning antibiotics are wasted
  • developing new antibiotics that work against bacteria is difficult and slow