Antibiotics and Painkillers
There are two main types of medication that can be taken when a person has a communicable disease.
1. Symptomatic treatments, such as painkillers and other medicines are used to treat the symptoms of disease but do not kill pathogens.
2. Pathogen targeting medicines such as antibiotics.
Symptomatic Treatments
This type of medication does not kill the pathogen, they relieve the symptoms so you feel better.
Painkillers such as paracetamol relieve pain, fever, inflammation, but do not kill the pathogen.
You will need to wait until your white blood cells have produced enough antibodies to kill the pathogen.
Pathogen targeting medicines
This type of medication kills the pathogen. A common example is antibiotics which kill bacteria
Antibiotics, such as penicillin, are medicines that help to cure bacterial disease by killing infective bacteria inside the body.
There are several different types of antibiotic available for doctors to prescribe. It is imporant that a specific antibiotic is used to treat a specific bacterial infection. This is because many bacteria have resistance to antibiotics.
If a doctor is unsure which antibiotic to use, a sample of bodily fluid is taken from the patient, bacteria within the sample are cultured on agar and different antibiotics area added. The antibiotic which is most effective is then used.
There are two pages dedicated to this
Using Antibiotics
The first antibiotic was penicillin, and it was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928.
The use of antibiotics has greatly reduced deaths from infectious bacterial diseases.
However, the emergence of bacterial strains resistant to antibiotics is of great concern.
Gonorrhoea is a sexually transmitted bacterial disease, and many strains are now resistant to antibiotics.
Another example is MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus), this is a type of bacteria that has become resistant to antibiotics.
There are ways that we can reduce the chance of antibiotic resistance occurring.
| Condition | How to reduce the chance of antibiotic resistance |
|---|---|
| Mild, non serious bacterial infection | In a normal person antibiotics should not be prescribed. They should only be prescribed in young, elderly or those who have a compromised immune system |
| Viral Infections | Antibiotics cannot kill viral pathogens. Antibiotics should not be prescribed because antibiotics are ineffective against viral infections. Antibiotics do not harm our own cells and the virus is within a body cell. So, the antibiotic cannot harm the virus. |
| Course of antibiotics | The patients should complete the full prescribed course of antibiotics so all bacteria are killed and none survive to mutate and form resistant strains |
| Antibiotics in animal feed | Antibiotics are sometimes added to animal feed to reduce the risk of infection and help livestock grow healthily. However, using antibiotics on a large scale increases the chance of antibiotic-resistant bacteria developing. Therefore, the agricultural use of antibiotics should be reduced to help slow the spread of resistance |
Developing antibiotics
The last new class of antibiotics was discovered around the 1980s.
The development of new antibiotics is costly and slow. It is unlikely to keep up with the emergence of new resistant strains.
Over time, as new antibiotics are developed, produced, and used, bacteria can develop resistance, making these antibiotics less effective at killing them.
Antiviral drugs
There are a small number of antiviral drugs. One example is antiretroviral drugs that are used to treat HIV.
It is difficult to develop drugs that kill viruses without also damaging the body’s tissues.
The antiviral medication that treats HIV tries to stop an enzyme working that the HIV uses. Our body cells do not normally use this enzyme.
Practice Questions
1.State what the two main classes of medication are for treating communicable disease
2. Describe why antibiotics are really useful medications
3. How can the chance of antibiotic resistance be decreased.