Treatment
The chances of drug resistance can sometimes be minimised by using multiple drugs simultaneously. This works because individual mutations can be independent and may tackle only one drug at a time; if the individuals are still killed by the other drugs, then the mutations cannot persist. This was used successfully in tuberculosis. However, cross resistance where mutations confer resistance to two or more treatments can be problematic.
For antibiotic resistance, which represents a widespread problem nowadays, destroying the resistant bacteria can be achieved by phage therapy, in which specific bacteriophage (virus that kill bacteria) are being used.
Read more about this topic: Drug Resistance
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“The treatment of the incident of the assault upon the sailors of the Baltimore is so conciliatory and friendly that I am of the opinion that there is a good prospect that the differences growing out of that serious affair can now be adjusted upon terms satisfactory to this Government by the usual methods and without special powers from Congress.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Ambivalence reaches the level of schizophrenia in our treatment of violence among the young. Parents do not encourage violence, but neither do they take up arms against the industries which encourage it. Parents hide their eyes from the books and comics, slasher films, videos and lyrics which form the texture of an adolescent culture. While all successful societies have inhibited instinct, ours encourages it. Or at least we profess ourselves powerless to interfere with it.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)