Antibiotics and Painkillers

• Painkillers don't tackle the cause of the disease or kill pathogens, they just help to reduce the symptoms
• Antibiotics actually kill the bacteria causing the problem but don't destroy viruses
• Antibiotics, such as penicillin, are medicines that help to cure bacterial disease by killing infective bacteria inside the body.
• It is important that specific bacteria should be treated by specific antigens
• The use on antibiotics has greatly reduced deaths from infectious bacterial diseases. However, the emergence of resistant strains poses great concern
• Antibiotics cannot kill viral pathogens
• Painkillers and other medicines are used to treat the symptoms, not kill the pathogens
• It is difficult to develop drugs that kill viruses without also damaging the body's tissues