WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION

THE world is running out of effective antibiotics, health leaders have warned.

The problem is now a global emergency, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.

The growing resistance to drugs that fight infections could “seriously jeopardise” progress made in modern medicine, the WHO said. The remarks come after a WHO report found a serious lack of drugs in development that can overcome antibiotic resistance.

Health experts have already warned that resistance to antimicrobial drugs could cause a bigger threat to mankind than cancer. In recent years, there has been a UK drive to raise global awareness of the threat.

If antibiotics lose their effectiveness, then key medical procedures – including gut surgery, caesarean sections, joint replacements and chemotherapy – could become too dangerous to perform because of the increased infection risk.

Around 700,000 people around the world die each year because of drug-resistant infections including strains of tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. If no action is taken, it has been estimated that drug-resistant infections will kill 10million people a year by 2050.