• Question: will we ever defeat bacteria

    Asked by anon-181927 on 13 Jun 2018. This question was also asked by anon-181887.
    • Photo: Leo Beacroft

      Leo Beacroft answered on 13 Jun 2018:


      My guess is that we will probably prevent or cure all diseases caused by bacteria eventually many years from now in the future. At the moment though, things are getting worse in some ways. The main drugs that we use to treat bacteria are called antibiotics. Unfortunately, bacteria can evolve quickly and so new types of bacteria are born that are resistant to the antibiotics so they can’t be killed by them. Some bacteria are resistant to lots of different antibiotics and so it’s really difficult to treat them. I think eventually as our technology improves we will be able to prevent or treat all bacterial infections, but this could be 50, 100 or more years from now. Things may get worse first, but I think they will get better in the future.
      Thanks for your question 🙂

Comments