Narrow-spectrum antibiotic


A narrow-spectrum antibiotic is an antibiotic that is only able to kill or inhibit limited species of bacteria.

Advantages

Often, the exact species of bacteria causing the illness is unknown, in which case narrow-spectrum antibiotics can't be used, and broad-spectrum antibiotics are used instead. To know the exact species of bacteria causing the illness, samples need to be taken, the bacteria needs to be grown further and the DNA of the sample needs to be sequenced. New DNA sequencers, specialised for this use, are starting to appear which can perform this task within one hour.