More than 25,000 people in EU countries now die from infections
which are resistant to treatment with antibiotics, the World
Health Organisation said. The WHO warned that the world was "on
the brink of losing it's miracle cures" unless governments made
a concerted effort to fight the emergence of new superbugs. “In
the absence of urgent corrective and protective actions, the
world is heading towards a post-antibiotic era, in which many
common infections will no longer have a cure and, once again,
kill unabated,” said WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. The
warning comes as the Health Protection Agency reported it had
recorded 88 cases of bacteria carrying the NDM-1 gene in the UK,
most of them from patients linked to the Indian subcontinent.
Bacteria carrying the NDM-1 gene produce an enzyme that destroys
carbapenems, a major group of antibiotics used to treat
difficult infections in hospitals. New research published in the
Lancet Infectious Diseases today shows that the NDM-1 gene is
widespread outside th