A silver bullet for superbugs?

Without antibiotics, people could once again start dying from infections, and procedures such as organ transplants would be impossible.

Without antibiotics, people could once again start dying from infections, and procedures such as organ transplants would be impossible.

Published Jun 24, 2013

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London - Silver could be a precious weapon in the fight against drug-resistant superbugs.

Scientists say that antibiotics that contain tiny amounts of silver – such as in a coating – can be up to 1 000 times more effective.

The finding comes amid warnings that growing antibiotic resistance could leave millions vulnerable to untreatable bugs within a generation.

In experiments on mice, reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the US researchers found that silver, which is poisonous in large doses, allowed antibiotics to get inside bacteria and kill them by making them more “leaky”. - Daily Mail

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