The Strep A nightmare shows we are sitting on an antibiotic timebomb

At present here is no global consensus on how to manage these shortages we need one right now

- Martha Gill

IT IS something of a horror story. Children are getting sick with a perfectly treatable illness but parents are struggling to get their hands on the right drug — penicillin, no less — and some are dying. People are visiting eight, nine pharmacies and travelling to different cities to fill their prescriptions. The Government says there is no overall shortage in the UK — though there is an export ban — and anyway, that means little to the parents dealing with the sharp end of a local lack of the necessary drugs.

What is happening with Strep A and amoxicillin shows up the fragility of a system we take for granted. There has been plenty of shouting in academic and policy circles about an antibiotic crisis, meaning the rise of deadly antibiotic-resistant bacteria (estimated already to kill nearly 1.3 million people a year). But there’s a second antibiotic crisis which has been creeping up on us for more than a decade: an increasing disruption in the availability of common antibiotics, such as penicillin.