.8 antibiotics and painkillers

• 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 antibiotics.
• The use of antibiotics has greatly reduced deaths from infectious bacterial diseases. However, the emergence of strains resistant to antibiotics is of great concern.
• Antibiotics cannot kill viral pathogens
• Painkillers and other medicines are used to treat the symptoms of disease but do not kill pathogens.
• It is difficult to develop drugs that kill viruses without also damaging the body’s tissues