In the Soviet Union, they were used as medicines against bacterial diseases - a kind of live antibiotic.

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However, many doctors now go to Cipro and Levaquel first, prescribing them for ear infections, sinus infections, urinary tract infections, and many other common bacterial diseases.

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Subsequent follow-up work might examine if a higher level of abstraction exists such that more general purpose properties of an antibiotic can be determined to be effective against entire bacterial diseases (i.e. penicillin).

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Hospitals, labs and research facilities buy the kits to test for conditions including streptococcus bacterial infections, mononucleosis, parasitic diseases, lyme disease, herpes, chicken pox and shingles, as well as E. coli, transplant infections and respiratory diseases such as pneumonia.

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Neglected Tropical Diseases is an umbrella term for a range of bacterial, parasitic and worm infections which flourish in areas with poor water quality and inadequate sanitation.

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But over the past couple of decades, autophagy has also been shown to be involved in things as diverse as fighting bacterial infections and slowing the onset of neurological conditions like Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases.

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