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Asked by 09lawsona to Bob, Katie, Nisha, Sallie on 5 Jul 2012.
Question: Antibiotics and other medicines used to fight bacteria and virus are being used more frequently every day. Considering that some diseases can develop a resistance to these drugs. Do you think that in years to come we will find diseases that are resistant to all drugs ?
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Bob Bonwick answered on 5 Jul 2012:
An excelent question indeed. We are already seeing these bacteria that are resistant to some of the best medication we have available to us, this isn’t to say we cannot cure them, but its getting harder.
When we first started using antibiocics there was this idea that they were like a ‘magic bullet’ and nothing would be able to avoid it. Sadly too late we found that the drugs were less and less effective, only with the invention of gene technology and advanced diagnostic tools in the lab have we seen the true extent and GP’s and clinical Doctors are being much more reserved in their prescription.
As for furture bacteria, who knows? There are some bacteria that are so we adapted to survival, that it’s a battle to stop them speading and killing people. In lesser developed countries it’s even harder.
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Sallie Baxendale answered on 5 Jul 2012:
Yes – antibiotics dont work on viruses and there are lots of bacteria that are currently developing resistance to the antibiotics that we do have. Have you heard of MRSA – it is a bacteria that is very resistant to antibiotics and kills thousands of people in hospital every year – its a real problme – I think people and bacteria will always be in a race against each other – sometimes we are winning and sometimes they are
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Katie McDonald answered on 5 Jul 2012:
Yes, it’s a difficult problem and increasing resistance is being found with certain diseases. Another worry is that pharmaceutical companies are putting less research into antibiotics than before, so less new drugs are in the pipeline.
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