Bacterial Infection Can Be Picked Up From Anywhere
People become ill from two basic type of infections, bacteria and viral and the approach to curing each type is considerably different. In fact, each type of infection has many variations making diagnosis of the type important to affect a cure. With a bacterial infection, different bodily functions can be affected and making sure the patient receives the right anti-bacterial medication is paramount to a cure.
Bacteria can be considered a living organism as it does not require a living host on or in which to grow. Bacteria can grow in non-living surfaces such as countertops and are easily transferred from one surface to another. A bacterial infection can be the result of the bacteria being picked up by the hands from a non-living surface and moved to another surface or to a human being. The type of bacteria bacterial infection from which a person suffers is often indicated by the symptoms they exhibit.
Bacteria has the ability to self-reproduce, meaning a large colony of bacteria can be grown from a single cell, dividing in half every so often. Some bacteria split into two cells every few minutes and others every hour or so, again depending on the strain of the bacteria. Persons suffering from a bacterial infection can be treated with antibiotics.
Many Strains Can Be Deadly
One of the challenging aspects of bacterial infection is that the cells can mutate to other strains rendering previously successful antibiotics useless in fighting the new strain. While most of the bacteria's growth is due to the self-replicating process, occasionally one cell will pass on some of its properties to another cell changing the makeup of the previous cell. There are also occasions where a virus will move part of one cell to another cell creating a bacterial infection that will require a new antibiotic.
There are numerous types of bacterial infection from those that attack the lining of the brain, which if not caught soon enough can destroy the membranes and then grow into the brain cells themselves, often resulting in death. Less serious types of bacterial infection, such as those that appear in an open wound can usually be successfully treated with topical antibiotics.
The important aspect of treating a bacterial infection is in detecting it early and eliminating it before it moves into the blood stream where it is transported to other parts of the body. Many times a simple bacterial infection is moved into vital organs where it can destroy their function with disastrous results.