Antibiotics and vaccines
Antibiotics Antibiotics can treat many kinds of bacterial infections, such as pneumonia, meningitis and tuberculosis. Antibiotics have saved millions of lives and continue to do so. Their discovery changed the world of medicine. Antibiotics are very effective at treating a wide range of bacterial infections, including pneumonia, meningitis and tuberculosis. Illness Symptoms Pneumonia Coughing, difficulty breathing, increased heartbeat and temperature, sweating and shivering, and chest pain. Cholera Severe diarrhoea. Meningitis Severe headache, stiff neck, fever, rash, vomiting, drowsiness. Tuberculosis Persistent coughing, weight loss, chest pain, coughing up blood or mucus. However, antibiotics have no effect on viral infections like the common cold or flu. The discovery of antibiotics Antibiotic resistance
Antibiotics are medicines that help treat infections caused by bacteria. They work by interfering with how bacteria work in the body, either by killing them or stopping their growth.
There are different kinds of antibiotics that work in different ways. For example:
The first antibiotic, penicillin, was discovered by the Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming in 1928. He saw that a fungus made a substance that protected itself from bacteria. He took out this substance and called it penicillin.
The discovery of antibiotics has changed the world of medicine and saved millions of lives.
Fleming saw that bacteria could survive if he used too little penicillin or used it for a short time. This is because bacteria, like all living things, are evolving.
Scientists are trying to make new antibiotics, but it is hard and costly. When a new antibiotic is found, there is not much resistance. But when the new antibiotic is used a lot, bacteria have more chances to change and resist it. If antibiotics are given in a low dose or for not long enough, some bacteria are not killed.
Some scientists are worried that bacteria are changing faster than we can find new antibiotics. This could mean that some infections that are easy to treat now might be hard to treat in the future.
Vaccines Unlike antibiotics, which are used to treat diseases caused by bacteria, vaccines do not kill the germ. Instead, they make the person’s white blood cells make antibodies that can stop the infection. If the person meets the germ again, white blood cells quickly make the right antibodies. This keeps the person from getting very sick. Disease Symptoms Influenza (flu) Fever / high temperature, fatigue, dry cough and sore throat. Measles Blocked or runny nose, sneezes, sore eyes, raised temperature. Covid-19 Fever / high temperature, dry cough, loss or change to taste and smell. Discovery of vaccines
Vaccines are medicines that help the body fight against diseases that can spread from person to person. They make the body’s immune system, which is the body’s way of stopping illness, stronger.
There are different kinds of vaccines, and they help protect against many kinds of diseases caused by viruses or bacteria, such as flu, measles and COVID-19.
English scientist Edward Jenner (1749-1823) did important work on early vaccines. He is known as the ‘father of immunology’ and his work is thought to have saved many lives. Smallpox was a deadly disease that was common when Jenner lived. It killed between 10 and 20% of the people.
Jenner saw that people who milked cows did not get smallpox. These workers got cowpox from cows, and this gave them blisters. Jenner thought that the pus in the cowpox blisters protected them from smallpox. Cowpox is like smallpox but does not kill as many people.
In 1798 Jenner tested his idea by injecting a boy who was eight years old with the pus from cowpox. The boy got sick but got better. The boy was then safe from getting smallpox. This played a key role in eradicating smallpox, which was declared eradicated by the World Health Organisation in 1980.
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