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Public health tends to prefer the Swiss cheese model of prevention - increased access to antibiotics, trust building in communities, and promoting access to hea
by Fomite 2y ago
Public health tends to prefer the Swiss cheese model of prevention - increased access to antibiotics, trust building in communities, and promoting access to healthcare all occur simultaneously.
But vaccines are very effective.
- thaumasiotes 2y agoPublic health tends to take the view that access to antibiotics is already too high, not too low.
- IanCal 2y agoNot in the example given there.
- carlmr 2y agoIt is, it's preferable to have no antibiotics than not enough antibiotics. This only creates resistant strains and doesn't heal people.
- IanCal 2y agoIs it preferable to have none or enough?
- carlmr 2y agoEnough is obviously good, there's plenty of stuff where you need antibiotics to heal. Enough can be bad if abused, since some doctors overprescribe antibiotics for cases where it's not warranted, e.g. a cold. Most colds are viral in any case, so all you're doing is weakening the patient even more. Aside from that there may be severe side-effects, so it's best only to use antibiotics if you know you have a bacterial issue that can be solved with them. None is preferable to partial treatments, since a partial treatment will create resistant strains and not much else.
- Fomite 2y agoWorking as an infectious disease epidemiologist in global health, that’s not the take. The inappropriate use of antibiotics is too high, and simultaneously there are very real issues of access.
- tim333 2y agoVaccines are sometimes very effective. But against "over 200 known types of strep A, distinguished by their unique M proteins"? Has there been a vaccine like that?
- Fomite 2y agoThere’s lots of multi-valent vaccines, the HPV vaccine being a good example. There’s also potential non-M protein targets. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-023-00609-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-023-00609-x