Importance of antibiotics
Antibiotics are essential for modern healthcare as they are used to:-
- Treat chronic diseases like diabetes, asthma, and rheumatoid arthritis.
- Treat serious bacterial infections, such as pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis
- Prevent infections during surgery e.g. joint replacement, organ transplants, chemotherapy, caesarean sections.
BUT:
Use of antibiotics encourages harmful bacteria that live inside the body to become resistant and may not work when you really need them:-
- Currently 5000 deaths annually in England are due to resistant bacteria
- It is predicted that by 2050, resistant bacteria will kill more people than cancer and diabetes combined
