AS we all know, antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections in horses as well as other animals and people. Unfortunately, bacteria can develop ways to survive the effects of antibiotics. When they do this, the bacteria become “antibiotic resistant”.
Bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics through DNA mutations, which give them defence mechanisms against the antibiotics (by adapting their structure or function in some way). Antibiotic resistance can also occur via bacteria acquiring resistant genes which transfer from one bacterium to another, meaning that these genes become integral to the DNA of different bacteria, too.
Sometimes, bacteria develop resistance to multiple antibiotics. Well-known examples of this include methicillin-resistant (MRSA), extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) producing and multidrug-resistant (MDR)
