What You Can Do

What can you do to minimize the threat of resistant germs? The World Health Organization has provided some guidelines. First, it outlined measures we can take to reduce disease and the spread of infection. Second, it described how people can improve their use of antimicrobials.

Logically, the best way to reduce following disease and its spread is to do whatever is necessary to keep healthy. What can you do to avoid getting sick?

Measures To Avoid Getting Sick

1. Do your best to obtain the following three things: proper nutrition, sufficient exercise and adequate rest.

2. Practice personal hygiene. Authorities emphasize hand washing as the single most effective procedure to avoid getting ill and to keep from passing infection on to others.

3. Ensure the safety of the food you and your family eat. Be especially conscious that your hands as well as the area where meals are prepared are clean. Also, be sure that the water used to wash your hands and food is clean. Since germs flourish in food, cook meats thoroughly. Store and chill food properly.

4. In lands where serious disease is transmitted by flying insects, limit your nighttime or early-morning outdoor activity when these insects are most active. And regularly use protective netting.

5. Vaccines can help train your immune system to fight off some germs that are common where you live.

Use Of Antimicrobials

1. Consult a health professional before buying or taking any antibiotic or antimicrobial. Direct-to-consumer promotions often benefit the seller more than that buyer.

2. Don't press your doctor for an antibiotic prescription. If you do, he may give you one only because he fears losing you as a patient. Colds, for example, are caused by viruses and antibiotics do not cure colds. Taking an antibiotic when you have a virus may suppress helpful bacteria, perhaps allowing resistant ones to breed.

3. Don't insist on the latest medicine-it may not be the best for you and may cost you far more than is necessary.

4. Learn about any medication from a reliable source: What is it for? What are the possible side effects? What are its drug interactions and other factors that might make ingesting it dangerous?

5. If the antibiotic medication is truly appropriate, you are generally encouraged to take the full course that is prescribed, even if you feel better before you finish taking it all. The last portion helps ensure that all of the infection is gone.

Next time: The Role Of Governments