The global antibiotic crisis: a 2020 perspective

Public health leaders have long warned that the advances of modern medicine will soon be reversed by the world’s dwindling supply of effective antibiotics.

As we approach a new decade, it’s fallen to Dr Robert Redfield, Director to the Centers for Disease Control in the United States, to say that we have already crossed the line.

In the forward of the 2019 CDC report on the threat posed by antimicrobial resistance he said simply: ‘We need stop referring to a coming post-antibiotic era – it’s already here. You and I are living in a time when some miracle drugs no longer perform miracles and families are being ripped apart by a microscopic enemy.’