Antibiotic Resistance Flashcards
How does antibiotic resistance occur?
1) Population of bacteria infect someone
2) Person takes antibiotics to kill bacteria
3) Some bacteria have random mutations in their DNA, making them less susceptible to the antibiotic or completely resistant
4) The antibiotics kill all bacteria, except the resistant bacteria which survive and reproduce rapidly. Antibiotic resistance can be inherited
5) Levels of antibiotic resistance in a population of bacteria increase
Causes of antibiotic resistance
-when people don’t finish their course of antibiotics
-when doctors prescribe antibiotics for things that don’t need them (eg. tummy bugs)
Problems with antibiotic resistance
If we can’t treat these bacterial infections, people will die
What are mutations?
When a sequence of DNA bases are altered
