The first step in treating bacterial diseases is preventing its occurrence and spread. Vaccines are available to prevent some bacterial diseases, such as meningitis, pneumonia, tetanus, and rabies.
Prevention of the spread of harmful bacteria that cause bacterial diseases also includes frequent hand washing and covering the mouth and nose with a tissue during sneezing or coughing. It is also important to avoid contact with a person who has a bacterial disease.
Bacterial diseases are treated with antibiotics. Antibiotics work by killing the harmful bacteria or by stopping them from reproducing and spreading. Different types of antibiotics are effective for treating specific types of bacteria. General types of antibiotics include penicillins, cephalosporins, tetracyclines, aminoglycosides, quinolones, and macrolides. Antibiotics may be given orally, by muscular injection, or intravenously.
Sometimes an antibiotic that used to work in treating a bacterial disease stops being effective. This is called antibiotic resistance. This makes a bacterial disease more difficult to treat and can result in serious complications, such as sepsis, coma, and death.
Treatment of bacterial infections generally also includes rest, increased fluids, good nutrition, and may require hospitalization and intensive care, especially if complications occur.
People who have had close contact with a person with a serious bacterial disease, such as meningitis, may also need to be treated and/or monitored for the disease, even in the absence of symptoms.
Alternative treatments or home remedies that have been listed as possibly helpful for Bacterial diseases may include:
Note:You must always seek professional medical advice about any prescription drug, OTC drug, medication, treatment or change in treatment plans.
Some of the different medications used in the treatment of Bacterial diseases include:
These medical statistics relate to hospitals, hospitalization and Bacterial diseases:
The following medical news items are relevant to treatment of Bacterial diseases:
Doctors, however, sometimes prescribe antibiotics unnecessarily for a variety of reasons, including pressure from patients with viral infections. Patients may insist on being prescribed an antibiotic without knowing that it won't work on viruses. Colds and flu are two notable viral infections for which some doctors send their patients to the drugstore with a prescription for an antibiotic.
Because antibiotics have been overprescribed or inappropriately prescribed over the years, bacteria have become resistant to the killing effects of these drugs. This resistance, called antimicrobial or drug resistance, has become a very serious problem, especially in hospital settings.
Bacteria that are not killed by the antibiotic become strong enough to resist the same medicine the next time it's given. Because bacteria multiply so rapidly, changed or mutated bacteria that resist antibiotics will quickly outnumber those that can be destroyed by those same drugs. (Source: excerpt from Microbes in Sickness and in Health -- Publications, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: NIAID)
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