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Asked by Dom Smith to Ceri, Marikka, Matt, Rob, Sally on 7 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by MC.
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Sally Cutler answered on 7 Nov 2014:
Nothing is permanent for microbes. “Superbugs” are usually found in places where they have a selective advantage like hospitals. Here there is heavy use of antibiotics, so it is a good thing for microbes to be resistant to these in order to survive. Unfortunately there is also a lot of antibiotic use in farming, so you can find resistance among microbes from animals too, and even among wildlife now. I think the lesson we are now learning is that antibiotics need to be used with care and should be controlled to ensure they are used properly. Some countries have tried to control use and have seen the resistance levels drop (slightly). Other countries allow you to buy any antibiotic from a shop without any controls. We still have a lot of work to do.
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Ceri Dare answered on 7 Nov 2014:
‘Superbugs’ have to work hard to stay resistant, so if we use fewer antibiotics, then they will not carry on being so resistant – we have seen this as MRSA cases have dropped a lot as we have managed antibiotics more carefully in the NHS.
But unfortunately we keep using too many antibiotics, not just in medicine but in factory farming. You can read more about that here: http://antibiotic-action.com/
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Robert Hampson answered on 10 Nov 2014:
The bacteria which have gained resistance in hospitals are likely to remain resistant if we keep using antibiotics.
Some bacteria have always been naturally fairly resistant to antibiotics, e.g. pseudomonas aeruginosa and clostridium difficile.
There are also some strains which have become resistant due to the use of antibiotics and are now also more nasty so that they can infect people outside of hospitals, CA(community acquired)-MRSA is happily passed around outside of hospitals, its resistance may use up a lot of energy but by secreting more bad chemicals and enzymes it can get more energy from the host and infect more people easily. Some strains of CA-MRSA are resistant to most of the antibiotics currently available. As long as it can find more hosts, these strains are likely to be permanently resistant.
Yes, more bacteria will become resistant in future unless we stop using antibiotics. Even using them sensibly, will only slow down how quickly bacteria become resistant.
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Marikka Beecroft answered on 11 Nov 2014:
Superbugs aren’t resistant forever they can lose their resistance if they no longer need it. If we use less antibiotics, bacteria will stop becoming resistant because resistance takes up a lot of energy. The way I like to look at it is to imagine yourself carrying a heavy shield and that you can be attacked at anytime. You are attacked nearly constantly and you depend on your shield for protection but it really tires you out. After a while attacks become less frequent, you don’t need it as much and you have more energy to do other things. Then the attacks stop completely and you just get rid of your shield because it’s heavy, you’re sick of carrying it and you don’t need it anymore.
In bacteria though they can pass resistance to each other through DNA. So imagine you’ve got your shield but another person comes along and they say they’re are being attacked, so you give them the plans to make their own shield to protect themselves and they make their own shield. Which is pretty much what bacteria do when there are antibiotics are being used too much. They help each other out by passing each other DNA that make them resistant. Those that don’t get the DNA get attacked by antibiotics and die but those that don’t live on and carry that resistance with them.
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