• Question: What is the strongest antibiotic to use if you have a serious/ fatal illness?

    Asked by anon-263883 to Stephen, Pam, Ian on 14 Oct 2020.
    • Photo: Pam Harrison

      Pam Harrison answered on 14 Oct 2020:

      I don’t know the specific names of all antibiotics – there’s hundreds of different strains and brands and it isn’t an area i know a lot about… but for some serious illnesses a simple antiobiotic can still work – as long as that strain of the bacteria hasn’t become immune to it. The more we use antibiotics when they aren’t needed the more and more ‘super’ antibiotics we need to use. And there will be a limit to how many new super antibiotics we are able to find and make.

    • Photo: Stephen Clarke

      Stephen Clarke answered on 14 Oct 2020:

      Hey Alfie,

      unfortunately it isn’t as straight forward as that. You need to know what bacteria it is that you are trying to kill off before knowing what anti-biotic to use. As an example, some very strong antibiotics for a throat infection would be completely ineffective for a blood infection. Doctors will normally start off by prescribing an anti-biotic that has some effectiveness against lots of infections, like penicillin, and then change to a more specific anti-biotic once they have a better understanding what the patient is infected with. Then they can switch to a more targeted anti-biotic.
      Hope that helps

      Stephen

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