Worrying news as antibiotic resistance on the rise

Antibiotics have been readily available and widely prescribed by GPs and hospital staff for decades, and this is leading to initially harmless bacteria becoming drug resistant and could ultimately turn into superbugs.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) have warned previously that if no action is taken, the world could be heading for a ‘post-antibiotic’ era, maintaining that, without immediate solutions to the crisis, common infections will become global killers.

Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer, stated in 2016 that the danger of antibiotic resistance is as critical as terrorism – it has been estimated that antibiotic-resistant superbugs could kill up to 10 million people each year by 2050, with patients succumbing to once harmless bugs.

To add to the severity, as well as existing antibiotics becoming less and less effective, there have only been a couple of new drugs developed in the last 30 years, and warnings have repeatedly been made that medicine will be cast back to the ‘dark ages’ if new antibiotic treatment is not developed successfully in the coming years. The WHO recently reported that there was a ‘serious lack’ of new drugs in the development pipeline.

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Posted by Karen Motley, Paralegal, Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (karenmotley@chadlaw.co.uk), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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