Fighting Disease: Drugs Flashcards
What do painkillers do
A drug (aspirin) that relieves pain and treats the symptoms of disease but do not kill pathogens
What do antibiotics do
A drug (penicillin) that kill the bacteria which causes the problem of killing your own body cells
Why is it important to be treated with the right antibiotic
Different antibiotics kill different types of bacteria
Why is it difficult to develop drugs that destroy just the virus
Because viruses reproduce using your body cells which makes it difficult to find a drug that destroys just the virus without killing the body’s cells
What has the use of antibiotics greatly reduced
Number of deaths from communicable diseases caused by bacteria
What cant antibiotics do
Kill viral pathogens
How can bacteria become resistant to antibiotics
Bacteria can mutate, this can cause them to be resistant to an antibiotic meaning when you treat an infection only the non resistant bacteria can be killed
What happens to the individual resistant strain
Will survive and reproduce, and population increases. Eg: natural selection
What can the resistant strain cause
Serious infection that can’t be treated by antibiotics
Eg: MRSA causes serious wound infections and resistant to meticillin
How can you slow down the development of resistant strains
Doctors to avoid over prescribing
Finish the whole course
