Antibiotic resistance 'could end modern medicine', warns Chief Medical Officer

Antibiotic resistance 'could end modern medicine'

Modern medicine is finished if the problem of antibiotic resistant germs is not confronted, the Chief Medical Officer has warned.

Dame Sally Davies said prescribing antibiotics for illnesses for which they won’t help was making the problem worse.

She has called before for the development of new antibiotics as the current ones get increasingly less effective.

She told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "Modern medicine as we know it if we don't halt this rise of resistance the germs develop will be finished.

"It's a very powerful statement and it is true.

"Take cancer: most modern cancer treatments result in reducing your immunity and getting infections. If those are bugs that are resistant to antibiotics then you are going to have a choice of do I take my chance the antibiotics won't work, or do I do my bucket list?"

Dame Sally was reacting to the publication of new research by the Wellcome Trust which shows public understanding of antimicrobial resistance is still lacking.

The researchers conducted a series of interviews and focus groups in London, Manchester and Birmingham.

They found that most people, if they had heard of antibiotic resistance at all, thought it was their body which becomes resistant to antibiotics, rather than the bacteria that cause drug-resistant infections.

This misconception often makes people feel like antibiotic resistance is someone else’s problem, the researchers said.