Test your understanding II

In this section, you'll find study questions relevant to the second part of the course. Use them to anchor and expand the knowledge you have obtained. You will find an answer key to the study questions at the bottom of this page.

Study questions

Q1

Bacteria are broadly classified into Gram positive or Gram negative. What is the difference between these two groups, and why is this classification relevant?

Q2

Please list two Gram negative and two Gram positive bacteria with clinical importance. Exemplify what diseases they may cause.

Q3

From an evolutionary perspective, why do you think the occurrence of antibiotic resistance has increased dramatically the last decades, although antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon?

Q4

Why do you think antibiotic resistance existed naturally long before we started to use antibiotics as therapeutics?

Q5

Please give minimum three different examples of mechanisms bacteria may use to avoid the action of antibiotics and thus become resistant.

Q6

How can antibiotic resistant bacteria spread from continent to continent?

Q7

Please mention a few spreading routes for resistant bacteria.

Q8

A physician at a hospital does a clinical examination of a patient with a bacterial wound infection. What actions can she take to minimize spreading the bacterium to the next patient she meets?

Q9

Should the physician have taken any additional precautions if she would have known that the wound infection in the previous example in fact was caused by a superbug, for example a multi-resistant strain of S. aureus?

Q10

What are the direct and indirect risks of having antibiotic resistant bacteria present in food-producing animals?