But we'll only know if omicron is a problem by watching it spread. Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service technologyreview. Skip to Content. In stitches: Hospital sutures coated with a bacteria-fighting virus shown above effectively killed off 96 percent of an antibiotic-resistant bacteria in culture.
Researchers used these same sutures to sew up bacterially infected wounds in live rats. The treated stitches prevented infection from flaring up, while rats with untreated sutures developed large sores and inflammation. Deep Dive. By Antonio Regalado archive page. By Adam Piore archive page. These disease-causing varieties are called pathogenic bacteria. Many bacterial infections can be treated successfully with appropriate antibiotics, although antibiotic-resistant strains are beginning to emerge.
Immunisation is available to prevent many important bacterial diseases. It is very difficult to kill a virus. To cause disease, pathogenic bacteria must gain access into the body. The range of access routes for bacteria includes:.
Forgetting to wash your hands after handling pets and animals is another way for germs to be taken in by mouth. Bacteria that cause disease are broadly classified according to their shape. The four main groups include:. Most bacteria, apart from the cocci variety, move around with the aid of small lashing tails flagella or by whipping their bodies from side to side.
Under the right conditions, a bacterium reproduces by dividing in two. They develop a tough outer coating and await the appropriate change of conditions. These hibernating bacteria are called spores. Spores are harder to kill than active bacteria because of their outer coating. The body reacts to disease-causing bacteria by increasing local blood flow inflammation and sending in cells from the immune system to attack and destroy the bacteria.
Antibodies produced by the immune system attach to the bacteria and help in their destruction. They may also inactivate toxins produced by particular pathogens, for example tetanus and diphtheria. Immunisation is available to prevent many important bacterial diseases such as Hemophilus influenza Type b Hib , tetanus and whooping cough..
A virus is a miniscule pocket of protein that contains genetic material. If you placed a virus next to a bacterium, the virus would be dwarfed. For example, the polio virus is around 50 times smaller than a Streptococci bacterium, which itself is only 0. The four main types of virus include:. This makes it difficult for antibodies to reach them. Some special immune system cells, called T-lymphocytes, can recognise and kill cells containing viruses, since the surface of infected cells is changed when the virus begins to multiply.
Many viruses, when released from infected cells, will be effectively knocked out by antibodies that have been produced in response to infection or previous immunisation. Antibiotics are useless against viral infections. This is because viruses are so simple that they use their host cells to perform their activities for them. So antiviral drugs work differently to antibiotics, by interfering with the viral enzymes instead.
Antiviral drugs are currently only effective against a few viral diseases, such as influenza, herpes, hepatitis B and C and HIV — but research is ongoing. A naturally occurring protein, called interferon which the body produces to help fight viral infections , can now be produced in the laboratory and is used to treat hepatitis C infections.
Bacteriophages are viruses that can infect bacteria and multiply within them, breaking down the cell and destroying the bacteria -- amplifying themselves in the process to deal with more bacteria.
They are found everywhere including in river water, soil, sewage and on the human body. Soon after their initial discovery in , bacteriophages were investigated as antibacterial therapeutic agents. A limited understanding of their mode of action meant early work was often unsuccessful and with the advent of the chemical antibiotic era, bacteriophages were passed over as therapeutics.
The more bacterial targets there are, the quicker they grow by killing the host cells. Therefore it seems very likely that infections harbouring high numbers of bacteria will benefit most from bacteriophage therapy -- for example chronically infected ears, lungs and wounds," he said. This can usually be administered directly to the site of infection in a spray, drops or a cream. The major advantage to bacteriophages is that they don't infect human cells so seem likely to be very safe to use.
Increasing resistance to antibiotics has meant that bacterial infections are becoming more and more difficult to treat. With fewer antibiotics available to treat drug-resistant infections, research into bacteriophage therapy has been accelerated. The need for new approaches to counter such high resistance is both urgent and vital.
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