Antibiotic Resistance

What Causes It?

There are several causes for this process such as overuse of antibiotics, which increases the possibility of bacteria changing.

Misusing antibiotics also gives bacteria another opportunity to multiply when the antibiotic is not taken correctly or used by someone other than the prescribed individual, which increases mutation rate, leading to a higher rate of survival for resistant bacteria.

In other instances, bacteria may simply spontaneously become resistant to the antibiotics, via changes to the genetic makeup or DNA: the antibiotic might not be able to detect this bacteria after the change, or the bacteria may be more resistant after changes to its DNA.

A person may also pass their drug-resistant bacterial infection to another person, if contagious, which increases their spread.