"antibiotic" is a correct and usable word in written English.
You can use it to refer to a drug that kills bacteria or stops their growth. For example: The doctor prescribed antibiotics to treat the infection.
These will be the hardier ones that can resist the same antibiotic should they meet it again.
Doctors vary in the length of antibiotic regimes they prescribe, with five-day courses for urinary tract infection still being used even though the evidence shows that two to three days is sufficient for an uncomplicated infection.
Antibiotic resistant strains have even been found in Antarctica.
Launching Australia's first strategy for tackling antibiotic resistance on Tuesday, the health minister, Sussan Ley, said more than 29m prescriptions for antibiotics were subsidised by the government in 2013, with the drugs reaching 45% of the population.
She urged people to reconsider their antibiotic use.
Professor Jonathan Iredell, an infectious diseases physician who specialises in the transmission of antibiotic resistance, said Australia's national antimicrobial strategy would also mean funding for the sector was more secure.
"So for individual patients," says Gilbert, "the less antibiotic they are exposed to, the better".
So if you are given an antibiotic, first ask your doctor if you really need it, and then if you can stop taking it when you feel better.
But last week, in an article in the Medical Journal of Australia, Professor Gwendolyn Gilbert of the University of Sydney wrote: "There is a common misconception that resistance will emerge if a prescribed antibiotic course is not completed".
Also, says Cutler, antibiotic resistance is already rampant.
Despite a government joint committee releasing a report on tackling antibiotic resistance in 1999, successive governments had failed to release a comprehensive strategy, he said.
