• Question: How likely is it that there will be, in the future, a super virus that is immune to most anti-biotics?

    Asked by Pip to Christopher, Aaron, Ananthi, Ashley, Emma on 13 Nov 2017. This question was also asked by osmium456.
    • Photo: Christopher Richardson

      Christopher Richardson answered on 13 Nov 2017:

      The first thing to say about your question is that unfortunately antibiotics don’t work on viruses (only bacteria). We have drugs called antivirals which we use to slow down or stop a virus but ultimately viruses end up killing themselves in the end so most of the time doctors wont give you any medication and will say you just have to wait it out and you will get better!
      As for a super virus, you could argue that one already exists called the Marburg virus which is currently outbreaking in Africa and is in the news right now in Madagascar and that is almost impossible to treat and kills 99% of the people it infects

    • Photo: Ananthi Ramachandran

      Ananthi Ramachandran answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      Great question guys! As Chris said already viruses can’t be treated by antibiotics (that’s why when you get a cold you don’t get given antibiotics). For something like Ebola virus symptoms of this are treated as and when they appear but an official treatment is still being developed. In my opinion research into virus prevention e.g vaccines is very important!

    • Photo: Aaron Brown

      Aaron Brown answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      I believe Chris and Ananthi have answered this really well and I can’t reallt add anymore haha 🙂

    • Photo: Emma Stevenson

      Emma Stevenson answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      Chris and Ananthi have pretty much covered your question. However, in terms of a super antibiotic resistant bacteria, then there is already concern that this could be imminent. There are already many bacteria where there are only one or two antibiotics left to treat it, such as methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus, some strains of mycobacterium tuberculosis and vancomycin resistant enterococci. These cause life threatening infections if left untreated and there is worry the current treatments are becoming less reliable at treating patients because of their resistance. Hopefully though, Science will find a way of preventing this from occurring!

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