Keyword: antibiotics

The Coming Crisis In Antibiotics

Picture: Guardian Video Antibiotic drugs save lives. But we simply use them too much - and often for non-lifesaving purposes, like treating the flu and even raising cheaper chickens. The result, says researcher Ramanan Laxminarayan, is that the drugs will stop working for everyone, as the bacteria they target grow more and more resistant. He calls on all of us (patients and doctors alike) to think of antibiotics - and their ongoing effectiveness - as a finite resource, and to think twice before we tap into it....

Antibiotic End Game: What are the Implications for Africa?

Picture: Discovery News Glenn Ashton - Antibiotic resistant bacteria have brought humanity to the dawn of a new era of medical uncertainty and risk. This has emerged through a simple evolutionary trend, where some of the most basic organisms on earth have managed to thwart our ingenuity over the course of slightly more than half a century. Recent medical and scientific progress has extended human longevity well beyond the traditional biblical time-span of 70 years, across many parts of the world. One of the most important...