Why Will We Always Need New Antibiotics? Rethinking The Bacteria Fight

Antibiotics made modern medicine possible. Before the introduction of antibiotics, suchas penicillin in the 1940s, infectious diseases as simple as common skin infections claimed countless victims. In the early 1900s, 90% of children with bacterial meningitis died. Complex medical interventions like organ transplants, hip replacementsand even chemotherapy are all made possible or better by the use of antibiotics. But a hallmark of antibiotics is that they lose their effectiveness over time as bacteria naturally evolve and mutate and so become resistant to the medicine’s power.

The problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is growing, and seventy years after their introduction the rise of bacterial resistance to popular and historically effective antibiotics has become a grave threat to global public health. We now face the possibility of a future without effective antibiotics for several types of bacteria that cause life-threatening infections in humans. The problem of AMR extends across the globe.