Report warns of global threat posed by superbugs

Superbugs would kill some one every three seconds by 2050 unless the world acted now, according to a report.

The global review outlines a plan for preventing medicine "being cast back into the dark ages" that would require billions of dollars of investment. It also calls for a revolution in the manner in which antibiotics are used as also a massive campaign to educate people.

The report, which received a mixed response did not go far enough according to some.

The battle against infections that were resistant to drugs was one the world was losing rapidly and had been described as "as big a risk as terrorism".

The problem was that not enough anti-biotics were being developed and the ones that had been developed were being wasted.

Infections had taken a toll of over a million people, since the launch of the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance in mid-2014.

At the time, doctors also discovered bacteria that could shrug off the drug of last resort - colistin – which led to warnings that the world was teetering on the cusp of a "post-antibiotic era".

According to the review, the situation would only get worse with 10 million people predicted to die every year from resistant infections by 2050.

Lord Jim O'Neill who published the global action plan to prevent drug-resistant infections and defeat the rising threat of so-called superbugs said, tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) was absolutely essential.

According to O'Neill, pharmaceutical companies need to either join the search to hunt for new antibiotics or be forced to pay a fine, with rewards to those who found successful new treatments.

Another proposal under the plan calls for the better use of diagnostic tools to prevent patients being given antibiotics unnecessarily.

According to the new report if antibiotics were to lose their effectiveness then key medical procedures - including gut surgery, caesarean sections, joint replacements, and chemotherapy - could become too dangerous to perform.