Imagine going to your doctor with the most common illness imaginable like a cold or fever and he turns you away saying he can do nothing because it’s a superbug. The world might just come to that soon enough if we don’t act in time. No wonder then that it was with an inescapable unanimity that 193 UN member states have agreed to fight the fundamental threat of superbugs that are beginning to pose a live threat to global health as well as food production. Experts told upon all nations that drug-resistant bacteria is causing at least seven lakh deaths a year already. While billions of dollars are being invested in finding the next big antibiotic hoping to beat the superbugs, the present crisis suggests the time has come to stop overusing antibiotics.
Warnings were held out as early as in the 1940s when Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, spelt out the dangers when accepting his Nobel Prize. It is not only man who is threatened by his own foolishness, but also the whole ecosystem as microbes. Simply put, the dangers are such in a world now heading into a post-antibiotic era that common infections like those caused by gram-negative bacteria could kill us. Beyond human health is the economic threat posed by this crisis which could wipe out development gains. Microbes sustain human civilisation but our understanding of an extremely complex chain of interactions is limited today. Global collective action is called for and the world must act on the resolve expressed at the UN.
