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Asked by anon-266985 to Melanie on 5 Nov 2020. This question was also asked by anon-266982.
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Melanie S. answered on 5 Nov 2020:
Hi! Sure! Superbugs are microorganisms (usually either bacteria or fungi) that have become resistant to common antibiotic drugs. These superbugs can be more common in places like hospital settings, because there are a lot of common antibiotics around, so the ones that end up surviving when all the “common” bugs are eliminated are the ones that can get you sick, especially if you’re on a lot of antibiotics. But that doesn’t have to mean that these are incurable! In quite a lot of cases, the treatment just involves a more specific type of antibiotic that was made just for that organism.
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Romain commented on :
Hey, very important question! Superbugs are microbes, typically bacteria, which evolved to resist some of the most powerful treatment we have available against them: antibiotics. What I mean by “evolved” is that, when they are exposed to antibiotics (in someone who is infected and is being treated by these antibiotics), most of them will die (antibiotics are good!), but a few will still remain alive and divide, these may be slightly different in that they have a slightly higher resistance to the antibiotics: therefore, you can see that the treatment has “selected” the microbes that are resistant.
In some cases, a long period of such selection may then make appear microbes that are VERY resistant! And these may start even becoming resistant to several antibiotics. We have superbugs!
This is one of the reasons why it is important to use antibiotics carefully when one is sick because for every person taking antibiotics there is a small chance of helping the superbugs. But the researchers working on antibiotics are working really hard on trying to find new treatments that can avoid that, or new antibiotics!