The world faces a growing threat of drug-resistant bacterial and viral infections that could cast medicine “back into the dark ages”, Prime minister David Cameron has warned.
No new classes of antibiotics have come onto the market in 25 years, while 25,000 people each year die from infections resistant to current drugs in Europe alone, in what the World Health organisation has described as one of the “most significant risks facing modern medicine”
In response to this threat, Cameron has announced an independent review into why so few anti-microbial drugs have been brought to market in recent years that will set out plans for encouraging new drug development including incentives for investment and international cooperation where the UK can take the lead.
The prime minister said:
“Resistance to antibiotics is now a very real and worrying threat, as bacteria mutate to become immune to their effects.
“With some 25,000 people a year already dying from infections resistant to antibiotic drugs in Europe alone, this is not some distant threat but something happening right now.
“If we fail to act, we are looking at an almost unthinkable scenario where antibiotics no longer work and we are cast back into the dark ages of medicine where treatable infections and injuries will kill once again.
“That simply cannot be allowed to happened and I want to see a stronger, more coherent global response, with nations, business and the world of science working together to up our game in the field of antibiotics.
“Following discussions at the G7 last month, I have asked the economist Jim O’Neill to work with a panel of experts and report back to me and other world leaders on how we can accelerate the discovery and development of a new generation of antibiotics.”
Discussing the need for new antibiotic developmentss, Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer for England, said:
“The soaring number of antibiotic-resistant infections poses such a great threat to society that in 20 years’ time we could be taken back to a 19th century environment where everyday infections kill us as a result of routine operations.
“We have reached a critical point and must act now on a global scale to slow down antimicrobial resistance. In Europe, 25,000 people a year already die from infections which are resistant to our drugs of last resort. The biotech and pharmaceutical industry will be central to resolving this crisis which will impact on all areas of modern medicine.
“We cannot tackle the problem on our own and urgently need coordinated international action, which is why I am delighted to see the Prime Minister taking a global lead by commissioning this review.”
The review will present its initial findings during 2015 with a final report and recommendations to then follow during 2016.
