Eli5 why not finishing a full course of antibiotics causes resistant strains of bacteria

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My understanding is that the antibiotics won’t kill the random mutant bacteria anyway, so doesn’t killing off all the susceptible ones just allow for more room for the mutants?

Does it have to do with more base bacteria getting the chance to mutate? A specific resistance has to be pretty rare right? Or will you have multiples of the same mutation in a “colony”?

In: Biology

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Just because you feel better doesn’t mean all of the bacteria is gone. You could still have some half-killed bacteria in your system. If that isn’t fully killed, you risk allowing it to mutate and become resistant. If it does that and replicates itself, you’ve just created a antibiotic resistant bacteria.

ALWAYS finish the course even if you feel better.

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