Ans: Antibiotic Resistance
Antibiotics are extremely important in medicine, but unfortunately bacteria are capable of developing resistance to them. Such bacteria are not affected by commonly used antibiotics.
When bacteria are exposed to the same antibiotics over and over, they can change and are no longer affected by the drug.
Bacteria have number of ways of developing resistance. Sometimes, their internal mechanism stops the working of antibiotic.
Bacteria can also transfer the genes responsible for antibiotic resistance between them. So such resistant bacteria make it possible for other, bacteria to acquire resistance.
iii) Another reason for increasing antibiotic resistance in bacteria is their use in diseases in which they have no efficacy (e.g. antibiotics are not effective against infections caused by viruses)
Resistance to antibiotics poses a serious and growing problem, because some infectious diseases are becoming more difficult to treat. Some of the resistant bacteria can be treated with more powerful antibiotics, but there are some infections that are not eliminated even with new antibiotics.