ONE in six bacterial infections worldwide are now resistant to antibiotics, warns the World Health Organisation.
Bacteria can learn how to survive treatment with drugs and become “superbugs” that are harder to treat.

The gonorrhoea bacteria (pictured) is becoming increasingly resistant to medicines[/caption]
Standard medications like penicillin are gradually becoming less effective.
The threat is on the rise as antibiotics are overused and leak into the food and water supplies.
The WHO said 40 per cent of bacteria samples from around 100 countries between 2016 and 2023 showed an increase in resistance.
This was worst in Asia and Africa where resistance was found in up to 70 per cent of samples.
Thousands of Brits die from resistant bugs
It is an issue in Britain too, with fears about MRSA and C.diff – both common in hospitals – and also drug-resistant ‘super’ gonorrhoea.
Approximately 7,600 people per year now die from antibiotic-resistant infections in the UK, compared to around 2,000 in 2021.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “We must use antibiotics responsibly, and make sure everyone has access to the right medicines.”
A new study by Exeter University found that other non-antibiotic medicines, like painkillers, also leak into the water supply and make the superbugs stronger.
Study author Dr April Hayes said: “Common medications can form a pharmaceutical cocktail in the environment and our waterways that promotes antibiotic resistance.
“This poses a potential threat to human health, because if we then ingest these bacteria and are infected, we may not be able to easily treat them, as antibiotics are more likely to fail.”
What is AMR?
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines, making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.
It can make historically treatable illnesses harder to combat too.
According to an earlier report published by the GRAM project, everyone is at risk from AMR, but the data showed that young children are particularly affected.
In 2019, one in five deaths attributable to AMR occurred in children under the age of five.
It’s possible to become resistant to medications aside from antibiotics.
Antimicrobials can be grouped according to the microorganisms they target, so antifungals kill fungi, antibiotics attack bacteria, antivirals are used viruses, and antiparasitics treat parasites.
One of the major contributors to AMR is the overuse and misuse of antimicrobials, according to the AMR Narrative.
One of the ways this can happen is if doctors prescribe antibiotics based on symptoms a patient presents, rather than a confirmed diagnosis.
Common medical conditions where antibiotics are prescribed unnecessarily are flu, colds, and COVID-19 which are caused by viruses as opposed to bacteria.
How can I take antibiotics responsibly?
- Don’t take antibiotics unnecessarily – you should never take antibiotic when you have an illness caused by a virus, as you’re putting yourself at risk of getting antibiotic resistance
- Don’t double dose if you forget to take your antibiotics
- Don’t stop taking antibiotics if it looks like the infection is getting better
- Don’t keep an unfinished course of antibiotics to take later or pass round to friends and family
- Regular hand-washing is one of the most basic but crucial ways to reduce the spread of resistant bacteria
Source: AMR Narrative