• Question: How long does it take for your germs to get used to antibiotics?

    Asked by evilbugs to Alex, Claire, Kate, Marcus, Neil on 23 Jun 2014.
    • Photo: Marcus Johns

      Marcus Johns answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      That depends on the germ! Firstly, antibiotics only work on certain germs known as bacteria. Some germs are completely resistant to antibiotics because they are viruses and not bacteria. This is a major problem because doctors and vets give people and animals antibiotics when they don’t have an illness caused by bacteria, which means that there’s antibiotics around for bacteria to get used to when we don’t want there to be any – the less we use, the more effective they’ll be!

      Bacteria will become used to antibiotics more quickly if they grow and produce more bacteria quickly. Each generation of the bacteria could have a mutation that allows them to get used to the antibiotics and once this happens they can grow happily.

      Bacteria can also share information with other bacteria and this can include different mutations Mensing that if one

    • Photo: Marcus Johns

      Marcus Johns answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      That depends on the germ! Firstly, antibiotics only work on certain germs known as bacteria. Some germs are completely resistant to antibiotics because they are viruses and not bacteria. This is a major problem because doctors and vets give people and animals antibiotics when they don’t have an illness caused by bacteria, which means that there’s antibiotics around for bacteria to get used to when we don’t want there to be any – the less we use, the more effective they’ll be!

      Bacteria will become used to antibiotics more quickly if they grow and produce more bacteria quickly. Each generation of the bacteria could have a mutation that allows them to get used to the antibiotics and once this happens they can grow happily.

      Bacteria can also share information with other bacteria and this can include different mutations. This means that if one bacteria is resistant (used) to the antibiotic other bacteria in the same area can also become resistant.

      Hope that helps!

    • Photo: Claire Brockett

      Claire Brockett answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      evilbugs,
      I’m afraid I don’t know too much about this, so I’ll rely on the expertise of Marcus and others 🙂

    • Photo: Kate Niehaus

      Kate Niehaus answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      It depends on several factors! Sometimes a bacteria can get just a single mutation, and this will make antibiotics useless against them! Bacteria can generally stop being affected by antibiotics in a few different ways:
      – They can get a single mutation in their DNA, which makes the drug ineffective
      – They can get a copy of a new bit of DNA (called a plasmid) from some other bacteria that makes the drug ineffective

      For single mutations, the rate at which the bacteria will become used to antibiotics depends on how frequently it gets mutations, which depends on the bacteria. But by chance it could happen with just one mutation – which takes nearly no time at all! For borrowing bits of DNA from other bacteria, this depends on the bacteria that is around and how easily they come into contact.

      Bacteria become resistant to antibiotics much more quickly when they are in environments where they are around antibiotics, but the antibiotics are not quite strong enough to kill them. This allows them to keep living and getting new mutations, and soon they become completely unaffected by the drug. This is why it’s so important to:
      – Take all of the antibiotics that you are given by the doctor
      – Not take antibiotics when you have a viral infection (because, like Marcus said, antibiotics can only kill bacteria – not viruses).

      Let us know if you want more details!

    • Photo: Alex Lyness

      Alex Lyness answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      Hey evilbugs,

      Katie and Marcus have both given great answers, I have nothing more to add except that this is a really hot topic at the moment and more work has to be done educating people who use antibiotics too much or too frequently.

      Check out this link for more details: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27204988

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