If you do have the flu, two drugs, amantadine and rimantadine, can reduce symptoms. Otherwise, the human species would not have survived, even before the advent of antibiotics,'' says Metson of Mass. Eye and Ear. As bacteria fight back, world health woes are feared In the 1940s, when antibiotics were developed, they were seen, rightly, as miracle drugs. Indeed, the ability to save lives by killing deadly bacteria is a milestone of modern medicine. Already, the death rates from some diseases, such as tuberculosis, are rising again after having decreased for decades, says Dr. Stuart B. Levy at Tufts University School of Medicine.
Bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics in several ways.
They can spontaneously undergo mutations that allow them to evade antibiotics. And in any given body or community, strains of bacteria that are resistant can become dominant if antibiotics kill off other bacteria with which they compete. Researchers have found, for instance, that when one member of a household chronically takes an antibiotic for acne, other members develop skin bacteria resistant to that antibiotic. More alarmingly, in many parts of the world, strains of the deadly Staphylococcus aureus are now resistant to all antibiotics except the potent vancomycin. Worldwide, part of the problem is that farmers use antibiotics to boost growth in animals, Levy adds.