The facts about antibiotic use have come from the World Health Organization (WHO). The report warns that given the rise in antibiotic resistance, the world is heading to a post-antibiotic era where medicines common today will no longer be available. Once the range of common antibiotics stops working, then the risk is that common infections, such as tuberculosis, will kill again. Moreover, surgery and cancer treatment are also reliant on the drugs to keep patients alive.
The growing menace of antibiotic resistance is, arguably, the single biggest threat faced by the world’s population. This is central to the WHO report, which has been issued in advance of a meeting of the WHO’s World Health Assembly, taking place in May 2015.
In the report, health experts have assessed the state of 133 countries’ efforts to combat the problem. The assessment concludes that only 34 countries have any form of national plan to combat the threat posed by bacteria acquiring resistance to antibiotics.
Commenting on this, Dr Charles Penn, co-ordinator for antimicrobial resistance at the WHO, told the BBC: “This is the first report to capture on a worldwide basis what is currently being done. Only one in four had in place a national action plan and that’s too few, a lot more needs to be done.”
In related news, a new global campaign to tackle the antibiotic issue has been launched. Termed the Fleming Fund the campaign has the aim of harnessing resources to tackle the growing problem of antibiotic resistant pathogenic bacteria.
