Fear over rise of the superbugs
Fear over rise of the superbugs
We have long known about them, but now a global health alert is warning 'Superbugs' are resisting cures for common infections, putting millions of lives at risk.
The World Health Organisation says in some areas, half of all patients we used to be able to treat are dying.
Grandfather George Bond, while on holiday in Abu Dhabi in 2012, fell violently ill and found himself in hospital, with the antibiotics having no effect.
"I do recall coming out of the coma 30 days later and naturally I was very groggy and wondered what I was doing in hospital,” said Mr Bond.
The 68-year-old had contracted pneumonia from swimming in the hotel pool. A team of 14 doctors had all but given up on George. But somehow his body’s natural defences kicked in and he survived.
"And each day they'd call me the miracle man mainly because other people in the hospital there with the same sort of conditions, they did not survive,” he added.
In the 86 years since Penicillin was discovered, we have created antibiotics to treat all manner of infections. But those same bacteria have mutated into so-called superbugs that antibiotics cannot kill.
"Well I think this is a very dire warning because the WHO is telling us that in lots of areas of the world antibiotic resistance is so bad there really isn't any treatment for common infections,” said Professor Peter Collignon, who leads the Infectious Diseases Unit at the Australian National University, researching how bacteria and viruses are beating our best cures.
"If we're unlucky enough get an infection, a ruptured appendix, a gall bladder problem, pneumonia then we actually have that bug in a place it shouldn't be and we can get very sick and if doesn't respond to antibiotics we have a much higher chance of dying,” Professor Collignon said.
The World Health Organisation today released data confirming the diseases that, a century ago, killed millions are killing again.
Chest and blood infections, E Coli, Campylobacter, Venereal Diseases; all are becoming resistant to the last few antibiotics we have left. In some countries, more than half of those who contract these bugs are dying.
“A cut finger that leads to an infection that would get better with antibiotics has the potential now to kill people because antibiotics won't work,”said Greens Senator, Richard Di Natale.
He has seen first-hand how the over-prescription of antibiotics for illnesses like the common cold has crippled their overall effectiveness.
“I know as a GP often people would come in and almost demand antibiotics, sometimes they weren't necessary and people need to know that there is a cost when they take antibiotics and they don't need them and that cost is resistance, that means over the long term when they really need antibiotics, they won't work,” Senator Di Natale said.
Travellers who fall ill overseas are bringing back new strains of superbugs and we're importing them in our food, along with antibiotics we don't need.
“We've also got to do more around screening the importation of food, some foods, fish for example, grown in other countries through agriculture have antibiotics in them and that's another cause of resistance, there are lots of different areas that we need to tackle in order to tackle in order to try and prevent this problem from getting worse,” Senator Di Natale added.
Researchers are calling for a funding injection to search for the new penicillin.
"Pharmaceutical companies are not into developing new drugs because the reward for finding drugs that treat heart disease and lower your cholesterol or make your bones stronger is much more lucrative because that is an antibiotic that large numbers of people have to take all the time,” Professor Collignon said.
All the experts agree; we need to reduce our use of antibiotics, ramp-up basic hygiene and find the next generation of medicines before it's too late.
“We take it for granted now that a simple skin infection, a throat infection an ear infection will get better with antibiotics, but those things before antibiotics were around killed people and that's the sort of world we're looking at if we don't do something now,” Senator Di Natale added
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