The World Health Organization has drawn up a list of the drug-resistant bacteria that pose the biggest threat to human health. Top of the list are gram-negative bugs, such as E. coli, which can cause lethal bloodstream infections and pneumonia in frail hospital patients. The list will be discussed ahead of this summer’s G20 meeting in Germany. The aim
is to focus the minds of governments on finding new antibiotics to fight hard-to-treat infections. Experts have repeatedly warned that we are on the cusp of a “post-antibiotic era”, where some infections will be untreatable with existing drugs.
Common infections could then spread and kill. Dr Marie-Paule Kieny from the WHO said antibiotic resistance was reaching “alarming proportions” and yet the drug pipeline was “practically dry”. READ MORE
