Listening Gaps 14

Listen to the audio and write down the missing words / phrases against each number on your notebook. The answer is attacked. You need to complete 20 Gaps to complete our Listening Course.

My name’s Doctor Jane Finn and I’m a microbiologist. I’m talking today about the (1) ________________________, or antimicrobials, as they’re often called, and the serious dangers this (2) ____________________ for the future.

We’re all familiar with the (3) ____________________ of a post antibiotic era in medicine, but how did we get to this point? Well, in the (4) ______________________ up to 2010, we saw a staggering increase of 36% in antibiotic use worldwide.

As more and more (5) _________________________________ were able to access them, usually online, we saw (6) _________________________________________ during that period. Although (7) _________________________________ suggest the general public has finally got the message that antibiotics should be used (8) _______________________, there’s still a hard core who want them prescribed for everything. 

Doctors are now better at resisting their (9) _________________________, however, for example, when the problem is viral rather than bacterial. This has improved things. For instance, there’s been a (10) _______________ recorded in the overall amount of antibiotics prescribed in the UK in a given (11) _________________________________. At first sight, that’s welcome news. The data shows that this decrease hasn’t had a (12) _________________________________ on patients with common infections like (13) _________________________, but we simply don’t know yet if it has made any impression on rates of antibiotic resistance. Other data shows that GPs have reduced the amount of antibiotics they prescribe by (14) ____________ over this period. Dentists have also reduced their prescriptions by an impressive 20%, but the figure for hospitals is much lower, so it’s not an (15) _________________________________ decrease.

So the picture’s more complicated than it may at first appear. Something else complicating the picture is a (16) _________________________________ medical research paper published recently. This suggested that (17) _________________________________ of antibiotics work just as well to treat most (18) ______________________ as the traditional longer courses of a week or so. Those conducting trials suggested that there’s (19) _________________________________ to prove that short courses encourage antibiotic resistance, and argued that it’s using antibiotics for (19) _________________________________, which increases this risk. The newspapers ran away with the story, however, and sent out (20) _________________________________ by suggesting it was ok for patients to stop treatment once they started feeling (21) ____________________. So I’d urge caution. After all, an improvement in symptoms doesn’t mean that the (22) _________________________________ has been resolved. Also, we can’t recommend widespread change on the basis of one article in a (23) _________________________________. In any case, as the original authors were careful to stress, the suggestions aren’t (24) ______________________________ for all bacteria-based illnesses, and (25) ____________ was the example they gave. Indeed, some bugs have proved especially resistant to antibiotic treatment, and the best known is probably (26) __________________. This came to light as a life threatening condition. For patients hospitalised for other reasons, it became particularly tough to treat.

MRSA bacteria is (27) _________________________________ for being able to survive for long periods on surfaces like floors, taps and even (28) _________________. And of course, the fact that healthcare facilities are visited by (29) _________________________________ of people means the bacteria spread easily. But studies show that healthcare associated MRSA (30) _________________________________ by about 50% between 1997 and 2011, thanks to things like new guidelines and (31) ________________________, as well as ward based contact control and (32) ______________________________ disinfection procedures. This shows us that rather than relying on one single action, introducing various initiatives on (33) ______________________ _______________ can limit the impact of the infection. 

Turning to other areas of concern, let’s look at antibiotics in agriculture and (34) ______________________ _______________. People might be surprised to learn that worldwide, the overall quantity of antibiotics used in (35) ______________________ _______________ is now higher than the amount consumed by humans. Something which horrifies me is that antibiotics are consumed by animals as a matter of course, simply to (36) ______________________ _______________, or indeed to speed up their (37) ______________________. This happens a lot in (38) ______________________ _______________, where animals are kept in (39) ______________________ _______________. We’ve known for years now that this overuse is directly related to (40) ______________________ in humans, so there’s obviously an urgent need for farmers to cut down. 

So, is there any progress to report? Well, though there’s still serious work to be done in places, for example, for manufacturers of antibiotics to stop (41) ______________________ untreated waste products into (42) _______________ _______________ and so on, it’s not all doom and gloom. We’re finding now that when doctors prescribe antibiotics, they’re choosing (43) ______________________ _______________ _____. These are (44) _________________ only against specific bacteria and so cause less (45) _________________ ________________. And something which is being talked about excitedly in the pharmaceutical industry just now is a therapy which uses bacterial viruses called (46) _________________ to treat infections, something which was first practised about (47) _________________ ________. Antibacterial therapies, whether phage or antibiotic based, have advantages and disadvantages, and there’s still a lot to be learned about the (48) _________________________ between phage, bacteria and (49) _________________ ____________. But maybe the time to take phage therapy seriously is (50) _________________ ___________________. 

Answers | Check the answers only after you have tried several times and got 98% answers. 

1. overuse of antibiotics
2. poses 
3. threat 
4. decade 
5. global citizens 
6. uncontrolled consumption 
7. recent media stories 
8. Sparingly
9. demands
10. fall 
11. four year period
12. negative impact 
13. pneumonia
14. 13% 
15. equally distributed 
16. widely reported 
17. short courses 
18. bugs 
19. (19.1) insufficient data; 19.2. longer than necessary
20. mixed messages 
21. Better
22. underlying problem 
23. medical journal
24. appropriate 
25. TB 
26. MRSA
27. notorious 
28. Fabric
29. huge numbers 
30. declined 
31. Targets
32. meticulous
33. several fronts 
34. livestock rearing
35. food production 
36. prevent problems
37. Growth
38. intensive farming
39. confined conditions
40. resistance 
41. discharging 
42. water courses 
43. narrow spectrum ones
44. active 
45. general resistance
46. phages 
47. a century ago
48. interactions 
49. human host
50. rapidly approaching