Antimicrobials

Question 1

What are antimicrobials?

Answer 1

Antimicrobials are chemicals that inhibit the growth of microorganisms or kill them without damaging your own cells.

Question 2

How are they useful?

Answer 2

They’re useful when your immune system is having trouble cleaning up infections.

Question 3

What are antibiotics?

Answer 3

Antibiotics are a type of antimicrobal that can kill bacteria.

Question 4

What don’t antibiotics cure?

Answer 4

Viruses.

Question 5

why should you always finish your antibiotics?

Answer 5

Because if you don’t this can increase the risk of resistant bacteria emerging.

Question 6

Explain how microbes can be resistant to antimicrobials?

Answer 6

1. Organisms will develop random mutations in their DNA. And this is the same with bacteria. For example being resistant to antibiotics.
2. When bacteria reproduce there will be random mutations but there will only be one bacterium with this gene.
3. When we use antibiotics this will kill all the non-resistant bacteria and only leave the resistant one.
4. This then allows the resistant bacterium to reproduce and there will be bacteria that will be resistant. This will become more common in a population of bacteria over a long period of time.