Rise of antibacterial resistance
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Antibiotics and similar drugs, together called antimicrobial agents, have been used for the last 70 years to treat patients who have infectious diseases.
Since the 1940s, these drugs have greatly reduced illness and death from infectious diseases. However, these drugs have been used so widely and for so long that the infectious organisms the antibiotics are designed to kill have adapted to them, making the drugs less effective. Superbugs, resistant to antimicrobials, are estimated to account for 700,000 deaths each year. But modelling up to the year 2050, by Rand Europe and auditors KPMG, suggests 10 million people could die each year - equivalent to one every three seconds. In our story, the new black Death crept up on humanity and effectively wiped out almost everyone. |
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