(TELEGRAPH) — The world is entering an antibiotic crisis which could make routine operations impossible and a scratched knee potentially fatal, the head of the World Health Organisation has claimed.
Margaret Chan, director general of the WHO, warned that bacteria were starting to become so resistant to common antibiotics that it could bring about “the end of modern medicine as we know it.”
As a result, she claimed, every antibiotic ever developed is at risk of becoming useless, making once-routine operations impossible.
This would include many of the breakthrough drugs developed to treat tuberculosis, malaria, bacterial infections and HIV/AIDS, as well as simple treatments for cuts.
