Question

_________ is the antibiotic effective against tuberculosis.
A) Penicillin
B) Rifamycin
C) Gentamicin
D) Tetracycline

Answer 1

Antibiotics are medications that are used widely in the treatment and prevention of many diseases. They are effective mostly in case of bacterial, fungal and protozoan infections but not that much against viral diseases. Antibiotics can be produced naturally from different microbes as a component of their secondary metabolite or it can also be produced synthetically.

Complete answer:
Tuberculosis is a lung disease that is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, though it can develop outside the lungs as well at a later stage. The infection gets converted to disease when the bacteria overcome the immune system activity and start to multiply and show symptoms. Around twenty five percent of tuberculosis infection is termed latent as it does not show any symptoms. Few of the symptoms associated with it are fever, loss of appetite, weight loss and fatigue. Tuberculosis may spread from one person to the other when the infected person coughs, speaks or sneezes. Diagnosis of tuberculosis may be done by chest X-Ray, culture of body fluids as well as tuberculin test. Treatment of tuberculosis is done with a combination of many antibiotics. This includes rifampicin, isoniazid, pyrazinamide and ethambutol for the first two months followed by rifampicin and isoniazid for the last four months.

Thus the correct answer is option (B) Rifampicin.

Note: Though Mycobacterium tuberculosis were initially sensitive to antibiotics but many drug resistant varieties have arised in the recent years. This is a serious health issue and the treatment of drug resistant tuberculosis requires a longer period of time and also more expensive drugs.