how can we control superbugs

Question: how can we control superbugs
- Keywords:
  control,
  superbugs
Asked by anon-210266 to Verity, Sergio, Nick, Maria, David, Annette on 5 Mar 2019.
- David Whitworth answered on 5 Mar 2019:
  
  I think the best way we can control the spread of any disease, not just superbugs, is to be a little more aware of the consequences of things. For example, when you have a small cold, make sure you wash your hands, keep away from older and younger generations who could easily catch it. Not going to the doctors unless absolutely necessary, and only taking the correct medicines. One of the reasons why there has been a rise of superbugs, or resistant bacteria is people taking antibiotics or antivirals for the wrong things, or taking too high a dose for too long a time. This allows the bacteria or virus to evolve ways to get past the medicines and build up their resistance to them.
  
  As a general rule, keep things clean, wipe down tables and surfaces regularly that you eat around. Wash your hands before eating, after going to the toilet, or if you are feeling ill. For a more scientific answer….ummmmm, not sure lol. This isn’t my field of study, but I would be interested to find out what research is being done to help prevent the spread of superbugs.
- Nick Werren answered on 6 Mar 2019:
  
  Superbugs exist because we have been using antibiotics too often. Either we need to use other methods to combat viruses or we develop new types of antibiotics.
  
  Recently a new type of antibiotic bacteria called malacidins was discovered in soil that could help us fight antibiotic resistant microbes! Perhaps this will lead us to discovering even more antibiotics – perhaps we’ll be able to create our own soon!
- Maria Walach answered on 6 Mar 2019:
  
  There are different types of bugs that people can catch in different ways:
  Some are passed around by touching, so the sensible thing is to wash your hands – in hospitals they will use hand sanitisers as well as soap.
  Some, you can catch by breathing them in. Often patients are given antibiotics, but one of the best ways to stop them getting around is using face-masks.
  Some, you can catch by accidentally getting the germs into your stomach – again hand washing is really important and keeping the food containers and crockery clean, but also making sure the food doesn’t have any bugs on them.
  One of the main things they do in hospitals to kill bugs, so they can’t become superbugs, is to use bleach to clean things. This makes sure a lot of the bugs don’t get passed around and can’t evolve to be superbugs. It is also really tricky though because bleach is really poisonous to humans, really bad for the environment and can kill good bacteria as well. So, the people who do the cleaning in hospitals usually get extra training to do it safely.
  The things you can do, is to just wash your hands regularly, make sure you keep things clean – you don’t necessarily need to use bleach if you are healthy because soap is really effective at killing bacteria too and more friendly for your body.
- Annette Raffan answered on 6 Mar 2019:
  
  When you have a child of your own, stick their face in the mud, let them get dirty and eat some things they shouldn’t. We are getting too clean as a race. Whilst this won’t control superbugs it will make sure our immune systems are tip top. And stay out of hospital where you can!!
  In general though, wash your hands, eat healthily and keep fit – these will go a long way to helping reduce them.
- Sergio Adan Bermudez answered on 11 Mar 2019:
  
  As my other researcher fellows said, the best way to control these superbugs is to be conscious about the consequences of our acts. We need to be informed about when to take antibiotics or any other palliative drug. Be aware of the hygienic conditions of where we go, have nice habits such as washing our hands regularly. With this, we will be able to stop spreading and creating bugs resistant to current drugs.
- Verity Woodhall answered on 12 Mar 2019:
  
  I think the new techniques for sequencing the DNA of superbugs to be able to quickly identify them, identify their strain, how quickly they are mutating and track their spread to help identify the source and prevent further spreading will become more common. This information can also help in developing new treatments and drugs. This approach uses genomics – check out this newspaper article to find out more, there is a great infographic too!https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/12/superbugs-rapid-genome-sequencing

Question: how can we control superbugs

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