{"id":26337,"date":"2024-10-04T03:10:15","date_gmt":"2024-10-03T21:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=26337"},"modified":"2025-10-06T12:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T07:06:10","slug":"narrow-spectrum-antibiotics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/narrow-spectrum-antibiotics\/","title":{"rendered":"What are Narrow-Spectrum Antibiotics?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>About Narrow-Spectrum Antibiotics:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Antibiotics are classified as \u201cnarrow-spectrum\u201d or \u201cbroad-spectrum\u201d depending on the range of bacterial types they affect.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Narrow-spectrum antibiotics are <strong>active against<\/strong> a <strong>selected group of bacterial types<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>They can <strong>act on either gram +ve or gram \u2013ve<\/strong> but <strong>not both<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>They are <strong>used for the specific infection when<\/strong> the <strong>causative organism is known.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>They will <strong>not kill as many<\/strong> of the <strong>normal microorganisms<\/strong> in the body <strong>as the broad-spectrum <\/strong>antibiotics.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Because they target very specific bacteria, they <strong>don&#8217;t cause<\/strong> an i<strong>ncrease in bacterial resistance <\/strong>and avoid the spread of drug-resistant infections.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Examples<\/strong> include <strong>Azithromycin, Clarithromycin, Erythromycin<\/strong>, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Gram-Positive vs. Gram-Negative Bacteria:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Gram-negative<\/strong> bacteria are <strong>surrounded by<\/strong> a <strong>thin peptidoglycan cell wall<\/strong>, which itself is <strong>surrounded b<\/strong>y an <strong>outer membrane<\/strong> containing lipopolysaccharide.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Gram-positive<\/strong> bacteria <strong>lack an outer membrane but<\/strong> are <strong>surrounded by <\/strong>layers of <strong>peptidogly can many times thicker than<\/strong> is found in the <strong>Gram-negatives<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Gram staining<\/strong> is a technique that <strong>uses violet dye to distinguish<\/strong> between gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria.<\/li>\n<li>If the <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/bacteria\/\" target=\"_blank\">bacteria<\/a> are <strong>gram-positive,<\/strong> the thick peptidoglycan layer in their cell walls will retain the dye, and they <strong>will stain violet.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>If the bacteria are <strong>gram-negative<\/strong>, the dye will leak out of the thin peptidoglycan layer, and the <strong>bacteria will stain red.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Gram-positive infections include MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) infections, strep infections, and toxic shock syndrome.<\/li>\n<li>Gram-negative infections include salmonella infections, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, bacterial meningitis, and gonorrhea.<\/li>\n<li>Knowing whether bacteria is gram-positive or gram-negative can help your health care provider identify the type of infection you have and which antibiotics will be most effective in treating it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What is Fusobacterium nucleatum?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a common oral opportunistic bacterium which <strong>exists in the oral cavity<\/strong> and <strong>gastrointestinal tract<\/strong> of humans.<\/li>\n<li>It <strong>causes different infectious diseases<\/strong> in the oropharynx and other parts of the oral cavity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1<\/strong>: What are antibiotics?<\/h3>\n<p>Antibiotics are medicines that fight bacterial infections in people and animals. They work by killing the bacteria or by making it hard for the bacteria to grow and multiply.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2024-09-narrow-spectrum-antibiotic-successfully-fusobacterium.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">First narrow-spectrum antibiotic successfully eliminates Fusobacterium nucleatum, a gum disease pathogen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Narrow-spectrum antibiotics are active against a selected group of bacterial types.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":26338,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-26337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}