Do you really need to POP THAT PILL?

Natalia Lubomirski explores why our use of antibiotics could be causing these life-saving drugs to lose their power

- Natalia Lubomirski

Who would have thought that a bit of mould could change the course of medicine? That’s what happened by accident, back in 1928, in the lab of biologist, microbiologist and physician Alexander Fleming.

Renowned for his chaotic working environment, Fleming returned after a holiday to find that the staphylococcus bacterium culture he was studying had become contaminated with fungus. He found that this mould – more specifically the ‘mould juice’, or penicillin as it was later called – had prevented the growth of staphylococci. It had produced a substance that killed a number of disease-causing bacteria and that had a positive antibacterial effect on pathogens that triggered scarlet fever, pneumonia, meningitis and diphtheria.

Since then, it’s thought that antibiotics have saved around 200 million lives. So why are we now hearing that they’re losing their life-saving power?

ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE

Antibiotics are used to prevent and treat bacterial infections. ‘To avoid being killed, bacteria evolve and change their response to potential attacks from antibiotics,’ says private GP Dr Jeff Foster. ‘When bacteria adapt so much that antibiotics are unable to kill them, this is known as antibiotic resistance.’

It’s one of the biggest threats to global health, development and food security, according to the World Health Organisation. So why is it happening?