Resistance Persistence
“Requesting unnecessary antibiotics will not only be of no benefit to you, but could also endanger those that really need them.”Published by Alice Manterfield, MSci Student at the University of Nottingham.
If you live in the UK like me, you will probably come across advertisements from the ‘Keep Antibiotics Working’ campaign by Public Health England. The campaign has featured billboards, TV, radio and online adverts including the following infographic:
taken from http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/healthy-living/wellbeing/news/a29096/phe-antibiotics-campaign/
Antibiotic resistance occurs over time as bacteria adapt and reproduce. For example, if there is a population of bacteria in a human body, some of which have developed a mechanism of resistance to a certain antibiotic, these bacteria will survive and be able to reproduce inside someone treated with this antibiotic. While this process will happen naturally it is greatly accelerated by the overuse of antibiotics when they are not needed. A large contribution to overuse in the UK is the insistence of patients to request antibiotics from their GPs when they experience flu-like symptoms. According to this review from Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety, most infections that antibiotics…
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