• Question: What would your approach to the growth of resistant bacteria and how would you counteract this?

    Asked by anon-182152 to Alex on 26 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: Alex Haragan

      Alex Haragan answered on 26 Jun 2018:


      Its an interesting conundrum!
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      In specific individuals we can all do our bit – finish the course of antibiotics right to the end (and don’t stop because you “feel better”) and don’t waste time asking for them for things like sore throats (which in about 99.9% of all cases will never need antibiotics).
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      As a doctor I can help by adhering to guidelines that help to guide which antibiotics to use when that varies regionally, and also try to avoid using them if they aren’t needed.
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      But saying that – this is all like closing the barn door when the horse has bolted; its far far too late for these measures.
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      In many countries around the world anyone can buy any kind of antibiotic, with no prescription or advice from doctors, leading to all sorts of resistant drugs.
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      Probably even worse is the huge amount of antibiotics used in the livestock industry – “farming” cows and pigs and chickens in spaces that are crowded, filthy and disgusting and pumping them full of antibiotics so they don’t die has unquestionably contributed to the issue.
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      There are plenty of research groups looking at new antibiotics – but these are so rare to achieve that the same thing will simply happen again.
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      So the answer is I don’t really know what we can do – but we need to find an effective way to kill bacteria that uses something other than traditional antibiotics – or in 20 years time we’ll be seeing lots of people dying from things that are completely treatable now.

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