resistance to antibiotics
antibiotics are medicines that help make our bodies resistant to diseases
for instance penicillin(discovered in 1943) was viewed as a breakthrough discovery in medicine
penicillin is one type of antibiotic
it was a significant improvement to the medicine available at the time and was used to cure many diseases from the flu to common bacterial infections
this had important implications during world war 2 when many soldiers were fighting on the battlefield
but just three years after the invention of penicillin doctors found that some germs form bacteria could not be killed with penicillin
in other words they had adapted to the penicillin antibiotics
and become stronger
these super strong bacteria are called superbugs
this means that traditional antibiotics like penicillin fail to kill superbug bacteria
medical researchers believe that bacteria sometimes change if they are exposed to the same antibiotic many times
if person has a cough or the flu every winter they usually go to the doctor
the doctors then prescribes an antibiotic for that specific disease the flu
but doctors have found that after maybe 8 or 10 years the antibiotic no longer works effectively to stop the flu or cough
in modern hospitals patients might get sick from a superbug type of bacteria
this has become a major public health problem
patients go to the hospital for a specific illness but then often get another virus while staying there
because there are many sick people in a hospital viruses"jump around" from one patient to another
many of these viruses are the superbug type which is resistant to antibotics