Students should be able to explain the use of antibiotics and other medicines in treating disease. • Antibiotics, such as penicillin, are medicines that help to cure bacterial disease by killing infective bacteria inside the body. It is important that specific bacteria should be treated by specific antibiotics. • The use of antibiotics has greatly reduced deaths from infectious bacterial diseases. However, the emergence of strains resistant to antibiotics is of great concern. • Antibiotics cannot kill viral pathogens. • Painkillers and other medicines are used to treat the symptoms of disease but do not kill pathogens. • It is difficult to develop drugs that kill viruses without also damaging the body's tissues.