Antibiotic resistance: World on cusp of ‘post-antibiotic era’
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The world is on the cusp of a “post-antibiotic era”, scientists have warned after finding bacteria resistant to drugs used when all other treatments have failed.
Their report, in the Lancet, identifies bacteria able to shrug off colistin in patients and livestock in China.
They said that resistance would spread around the world and raised the spectre of untreatable infections.
Experts said the worrying development needed to act as a global wake-up call.
Bacteria becoming completely resistant to treatment – also known as the antibiotic apocalypse – could plunge medicine back into the dark ages.
Common infections would kill once again, while surgery and cancer therapies, which are reliant on antibiotics, would be under threat.
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