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Superbugs could render even the most routine procedures deadly, warns chief medical officer

Superbugs – like MRSA (pictured here in a petri dish) – are highly resistant to antibiotic treatment and are thought to be responsible for 5,000 deaths a year in the UK alone - Reuters
Superbugs – like MRSA (pictured here in a petri dish) – are highly resistant to antibiotic treatment and are thought to be responsible for 5,000 deaths a year in the UK alone - Reuters

The NHS may soon be unable to safely offer caesareans and hip operations because of soaring levels of antibiotic resistance in British hospitals, the chief medical officer for England is warning.

Professor Dame Sally Davies’s comments come as the Department of Health pledged £30m to fund the fight against deadly superbugs through investment in cutting-edge drugs and diagnostics.

Contrasting the prime minister’s vision earlier this week of a health service made more effective through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), Dame Sally painted a picture of another possible future – “much harder to confront” – in which antibiotic resistance pushed medical science and the NHS backwards.

“It is a future in which common infections and minor injuries kill once again, and where the types of intervention we routinely deliver today, such as caesarean sections, chemotherapy and hip replacements, become extremely dangerous”, she writes in the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday.

Without this, quite simply, we, our children, and our grandchildren have nothing

Professor Dame Sally Davies

“What is at stake here is nothing less than the basic integrity of modern medicine – and without this, quite simply, we, our children, and our grandchildren have nothing”.

The discovery of new antibiotics are seen as vital in the battle to curb the global rise in drug resistant infections, thought to be linked to least 5,000 deaths a year in the UK alone and around 700,000 deaths around the world every year.

A 2016 report on the growing global threat of antibiotic resistance by former Goldman Sachs boss, Lord O'Neill, warned that, if left unchecked, superbugs could kill 10m people around the world by 2050.

The bulk of the new investment from the Department of Health, backed by matching philanthropic donations, will go to Carb-X, a non-profit partnership launched in 2016 by the US government and the Wellcome Trust which is dedicated to combating antibiotic resistance bacteria through the development of new technologies.

Antibiotic resistance | The true cost in Britain and around the world
Antibiotic resistance | The true cost in Britain and around the world

It brings total UK investment since 2014 to more than £615 million at home and abroad in research, development and surveillance in the area.

“The exciting world of robotics, artificial intelligence and genomic medicine that the Prime Minister conveyed this week will be an important part of this story,” said Dame Sally. “But our greatest achievement may yet be the rather more prosaic steps we are taking now to bring countries together to tackle antibiotic resistance at the source.”

There is growing concern among senior physicians across the NHS about the impact of resistant superbugs and the impact they are having on day-to-day treatments and operations.

I’ve watched patients deteriorate in front of my eyes because the germs are resistant

Sir Bruce Keogh, former medical director of the NHS

Because infections are common whenever surgery is conducted or when patients immune systems are supressed due to treatments such as chemotherapy, doctors need to be able to rely on antibiotics to perform these procedures safely.

Sir Bruce Keogh, a cardiac surgeon who recently stepped down as medical director of the NHS, warned in March that he had seen patients die because of resistance, leaving him with a “deep sense of futility and hopelessness”.

“I’ve watched patients deteriorate in front of my eyes because the germs are resistant,” he said. “People think of this as a problem of the future but the reality is it is a problem now and it’s likely to get a lot worse in years to come.”

Antibiotic resistance | Global consumption fuels spread of superbugs
Antibiotic resistance | Global consumption fuels spread of superbugs

Earlier this year, Public Health England revealed that an English traveller had picked up a case of “super gonorrhea” in south east Asia which was resistant to all standard antibiotics. The sexually transmitted infection was only cured after three days of intravenous treatment with the antibiotic of last resort, ertapenem.

This bug and others are spreading rapidly across the globe fueled by the overuse of antibiotics in medicine, especially in developing countries like India, and their use as a prophylactic and growth promoter in factory farms across the world.  

Although many resistant superbugs may start abroad, the nature of the connected modern world means they quickly infect other health systems and populations. For example, the south east Asian “super gonorrhea” spread to Australia as well as the UK.

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