WHO Announcement

[johnnya24]

The head of the WHO announces that we are close to entering the "post-antibiotic era", where an infected cut could again prove be fatal.

Linky

A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common as strep throat or a child's scratched knee could once again kill.

... Antimicrobial resistance is on the rise in Europe, and elsewhere in the world. We are losing our first-line antimicrobials.

Replacement treatments are more costly, more toxic, need much longer durations of treatment, and may require treatment in intensive care units.

For patients infected with some drug-resistant pathogens, mortality has been shown to increase by around 50 per cent.

Some sophisticated interventions, like hip replacements, organ transplants, cancer chemotherapy, and care of preterm infants, would become far more difficult or even too dangerous to undertake.

You can still buy antibiotics over the counter in many European countries (Greece and Spain for sure).

[Lucky]

This has scared me for a long time. In the last couple of years, I've known several people who have died from infections following surgical procedures. It seems that it is happening more and more often.

I've had three major surgeries in the last three years, and it scared me every time.

[Erik]

The medical technology community is working on making devices with materials that have been shown to reduce the risk of infection, e.g. silicon nitride. We'll see how that goes.

[overkill94]

Is this related to people taking antibiotics for every little thing and their bodies becoming immune to it?

I can only remember taking antibiotics twice in the last 20 years.

[johnnya24]

Is this related to people taking antibiotics for every little thing and their bodies becoming immune to it?

I can only remember taking antibiotics twice in the last 20 years.

Pretty much ... my ex's dad was a pharmacist. Everytime she went home to Greece and returned she would come with loads of antibiotics and other UK prescription drugs that we available over-the-counter in Greece. When she got a cold or a headache ... anything ... she would start taking antibiotics. I tried to convince her not to ... that it was actually harming her ability to fight off infection naturally ... she wouldn't listen.

Best thing I ever did was try to fight off some serious flu infections when I first started using regular air travel. I got some pretty serious secondary infections (which could have used antibiotics), but I struggled through until the virus had nearly run its course. I haven't had a serious flu incident since then ... they normally just blow over like a mild cold (and yes I know antibiotics can't do anything for viral infections before someone chimes in ).

I will usually only touch antibiotics as a last resort if I can't fight off an infection naturally. Of course, all this is irrelevant if other people are taking them like smarties, and farmers are injection gallons of the stuff into their herds.

[Fresno Bob]

Im more worried about the industrial farm use than the over the counter human use