2.15 Drugs & Medicine

Question 1

What are the two groups of drugs/medications?

Answer 1

1) Ones that relieve the symptoms
2) Ones that treat the disease

Question 2

What are painkillers?

Answer 2

Painkillers are drugs that relieve pain. However, they don’t actually tackle the cause of the disease or kill pathogens, they just help to reduce the symptoms.

Question 3

What are three examples of painkillers?

Answer 3

• Aspirin
• Ibuprofen
• Paracetemol

Question 4

Why would antibiotics or antivirals be used?

Answer 4

Sometimes the body might not be able to fight off a disease on its own. In this case, it might be necessary to use medicines that target the underlying cause of a disease (rather than just helping to relieve the symptoms).

Question 5

What are antibiotics? (2)

Answer 5

• Antibiotics are chemicals that kill bacteria without killing your own body cells. Many are produced naturally by fungi and other microorganisms, e.g. penicillin is made by a type of mould. Pharmaceutical companies can grow them on a large scale in a lab and extract the antibiotics.
• They can also sometimes be used to prevent bacterial infections from happening. E.g. people in close contact with a person with bacterial meningitis may be given the antibiotic rifampin, as this stops the disease from spreading to them from the infected person.

Question 6

What are antivirals? (2)

Answer 6

• Antivirals can be used to treat viral infections. They are difficult to produce because viruses use the host cells to replicate - it’s hard to target the virus without damaging the cell.
• Most antivirals don’t kill the viruses but stop them from reproducing.

Question 7

What are the disadvantages of medications? (3)

Answer 7

• Some medicines can cause adverse reactions in a person, e.g. some people have an allergic reaction to penicillin.
• Some medicines can be very expensive, especially if they’ll need to be taken for a long time
• Some medicines are not fully effective

Question 8

What is the difference between antibiotics, antivirals, and antiseptics?

Answer 8

• Antibiotics are used to treat or prevent bacterial infections. They work by killing bacteria or preventing them from spreading.
• Antivirals are used to treat viral infections. They don’t directly destroy viruses, but stop them from reproducing.
• Antiseptics are used to sterilise surfaces by destroying any microorganisms living there. They can be used on items such as surgical equipment, or humans (for example when washing a wound).

Question 9

Which type of organisms can antibiotics kill?

Answer 9

Bacteria

Question 10

How does antibiotic resistance happen?

Answer 10

Some bacteria are naturally resistant to certain antibiotics. The misuse of antibiotics can increase the rate of development of these resistant strains. For example, if a person is prescribed a course of antibiotics for a bacterial infection and they don’t complete the full course, resistant bacteria can become more common. This is because the bacteria with the most resistance may survive the antibiotic treatment. Once all the non-resistant bacteria have been killed, the resistant strains will have less competition and will be able to grow and reproduce.

Question 11

What is an example of a very resistant strain of bacteria?

Answer 11

MRSA - hospital ‘superbug’