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When to Use Antibiotics
Posted: June 1, 2004
When antibiotics first arrived on the market more than 50 years ago, they were hailed as miracle drugs; they also became misused as disease and bacteria-killing cure-alls that patients relied on to treat everything from the common cold to an ear infection.
But with each passing decade, bacteria that resist antibiotics making some diseases particularly hard to control have become increasingly widespread.
In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), many significant types of bacteria that cause infections are becoming more resistant to commonly prescribed antibiotics.
Many bacterial species, including the species that cause pneumonia and other respiratory tract infections, meningitis, and sexually transmitted diseases, are becoming increasingly resistant to the antibacterial drugs used to treat them. Several bacterial species have developed strains that are resistant to every approved antibiotic.
Yet, antibacterial resistance, also known as, antimicrobial or antibiotic resistance, is not a new phenomenon. Just a few years after the first antibiotic, penicillin, became widely used in the late 1940s, penicillin-resistant infections emerged that were caused by the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). These "staph" infections range from urinary tract infections to bacterial pneumonia.
Preserving antibiotics' usefulness
Two main types of germs bacteria and viruses cause most infections, according to the CDC. But while antibiotics can kill bacteria, they do not work against viruses and it is viruses that cause colds, the flu, and most sore throats. In fact, only 15 percent of sore throats are caused by the bacterium Streptococcus, which also causes strep throat.
In addition, it is viruses that cause most sinus infections, coughs, and bronchitis. And fluid in the middle ear, a common occurrence in children, does not usually need treatment with antibiotics unless there are other symptoms.
Antibiotics do not prevent or treat influenza (flu) which is also caused by a virus. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has approved several prescription anti-influenza antiviral drugs for the prevention and treatment of influenza.
To decrease both demand and over-prescribing, the FDA and the CDC have launched antibiotic resistance campaigns aimed at health-care professionals and the public. The FDA encourages doctors to prescribe antibiotics only when truly necessary.
How bacteria become resistant
Bacteria are organisms so small that they are invisible to the naked eye. They live all around us in drinking water, food, soil, plants, animals and in us.
Most bacteria are not harmful. Some are even useful because they can help our bodies function such as in digesting food. But many bacteria are capable of causing severe infections.
The ability of antibiotics to stop an infection depends on killing or halting the growth of harmful bacteria. But some bacteria resist the effects of drugs and multiply and spread.
Some bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics naturally, long before the development of commercial antibiotics.
After testing bacteria found in an arctic glacier and estimated to be over 2,000 years old, scientists found several of them to be resistant to antibiotics. This evidence most likely indicates a naturally occurring resistance.
If they are not naturally resistant, bacteria can become resistant to drugs. The more you use antibiotics, the more likely bacteria are to become resistant to the antibiotics. For instance, they may develop resistance to certain drugs spontaneously through mutation. Mutations are changes that occur in the genetic material, or DNA, of the bacteria. These changes allow the bacteria to fight or inactivate the antibiotic. Using antibiotics may kill normal bacteria, but the mutated versions can still live and multiply.
Source: Federal Drug Administration
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