Chief medical officer Dame Professor Sally Davies has described the risk of antibiotic resistance as a bigger threat than global warming and warns the UK could be facing an 'apocalyptic scenario'.
Chief medical officer Dame Professor Sally Davies has described the risk of antibiotic resistance as a bigger threat than global warming and warns the UK could be facing an 'apocalyptic scenario'.
Speaking to MPs at a science and technology committee meeting, Dame Sally said: 'The apocalyptic scenario is that, if I need a new hip in 20 years, I'll die from a routine infection because we have run out of antibiotics.'
Dame Sally warned 80 per cent of gonorrhoea cases were resistant to antibiotics and the number of cases among young and middle-aged people was on the rise. She also warned that tuberculosis was poised to become a major threat to health. There are about 440,000 new cases of drug-resistant TB every year.<