Infectious diseases Infectious diseases

2001/09/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Osasuna

Infections caused by bacteria, viruses, or parasites kill more people than any other group of diseases. To fight the bacteria we use antibiotics, while vaccines protect us against bacteria and viruses. However, both one and the other have their drawbacks.

The frequent use of antibiotic allows bacteria to develop their resistance and, finally, that antibiotics lose effectiveness. In the case of vaccines, on the contrary, the problem is bacterial development; if it takes a long time to give the vaccine until the bacterium enters our body, the antibody may not be able to recognize the bacteria.

Professor James Paton believes that this problem must be solved immediately and for this purpose the administration should allocate more money to research. In this way, he believes that the vaccines we use today would be effective for a long time. And it is that those who are currently used, many times, after a decade, are no longer effective.