Antibiotic resistance now 'global threat'

A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) has described resistance to antibiotics as a "major global threat" to public health. To compile the information, the group analysed data from 114 countries and said it was a problem for "every region of the world", affecting people of every age.

It described the situation as a "post-antibiotic era", where people are dying from simple infections that have been treatable for decades. WHO said there could be "devastating" implications unless "significant" action was taken urgently. 

Seven different bacteria responsible for illnesses such as pneumonia and blood infections were the main focus of the WHO's report.

According to the report, two key antibiotics are no longer effective in more than half of people being treated in some regions. One of them - carbapenem - is usually given when everything else has failed to work for people suffering with life-threatening infections such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, and infections in newborns.

People suffering with gonorrhoea are now becoming resistant to the "last-resort treatment" in the UK, but also in other regions such as Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Norway, South Africa, and Sweden.

“Without urgent, coordinated action by many stakeholders, the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries which have been treatable for decades can once again kill,” said Dr Keiji Fukuda, WHO’s assistant director general for health security.

The WHO has warned that more new antibiotics need to be developed, while governments need to address the issue of growing resistance and try to find ways to stall it.

In its "Antimicrobial resistance: global report on surveillance" report, it said resistance to some antibiotics had increased from "virtually zero" in the 1980s to only being effective in half of patients today.

Dr Fukuda added that having effective antibiotics has been one of the "pillars allowing us to live longer", and benefit from modern medicine but unless we take "significant actions to improve efforts to prevent infections and also change how we produce, prescribe and use antibiotics", the implications will be devastating.