Final answer:
Discontinuing antibiotics as soon as symptoms disappear can lead to the development of antibiotic resistance, making infections harder to treat upon recurrence.
Step-by-step explanation:
If the antibiotic is no longer administered once the symptoms go away, the remaining few harmful bacteria, which may have some resistance to the antibiotic, could survive and multiply. This can lead to the infection returning, often with bacteria that are more resistant to the previously used antibiotic. The antibiotic resistance problem is exacerbated by such practices, as only the resilient bacteria survive, reproduce, and potentially contribute to the evolution of resistant strains. Consequently, this makes it more challenging to eliminate the infection in the future, and it can ultimately reduce the efficacy of current antibiotics, leading health professionals into a predicament where existing drugs are progressively less useful against bacterial infections.
The scenario described is an example of natural selection, where bacteria with even slight resistance have a survival advantage when exposed to an antibiotic. If the full course of antibiotics is not completed, these bacteria can thrive, leading to an increased proportion of resistant bacteria in the population. As a result, if the infection were to return, the remaining resistant bacteria could proliferate, potentially causing a recurrence of the infection that is harder to treat due to increased resistance.