Published 18 September 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1438
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1438

Analysis

Meeting the challenge of antibiotic resistance

Otto Cars, professor1, Liselotte Diaz Högberg, researcher2, Mary Murray, freelance consultant; member of the WHO expert panel on national drug policy; visiting research fellow and freelance consultant on rational use of medicines3, Olle Nordberg, former executive director4, Satya Sivaraman, journalist5, Cecilia Stålsby Lundborg, associate professor and professor6,7, Anthony D So, director8, Göran Tomson, professor international health system research and director of doctoral programme6,9

1 Infectious Diseases, Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, 2 Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, 3 Wee Jasper, University of South Australia School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, Adelaide, Australia , 4 Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala, 5 New Delhi, India, 6 Division of International Health (IHCAR), Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm , 7 Nordic School of Public Health, Göteborg, Sweden, 8 Program on Global Health and Technology Access, Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA, 9 Medical Management Centre (MMC), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm

Correspondence to: O Cars otto.cars@medsci.uu.se

A concerted global response is needed to tackle rising rates of antibiotic resistance, say Otto Cars and colleagues

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Antibiotics changed the world. Since their discovery almost eight decades ago, they have revolutionised the treatment of infections, transforming once deadly diseases into manageable health problems. The growing phenomenon of bacterial resistance, caused by the use and abuse of antibiotics and the simultaneous decline in research and development of new medicines, is now threatening to take us back to a pre-antibiotic era. Without effective treatment and prevention of bacterial infections, we also risk rolling back important achievements of modern medicine such as major surgery, organ transplantation, and cancer chemotherapy.

Data from low income and middle income countries indicate that, because of the development of resistance to first line antibiotics, 70% of hospital acquired neonatal infections could not be successfully treated by using WHO’s recommended regimen.1 A recently published study of Tanzanian children confirmed that ineffective treatment of bloodstream infections due to antibiotic resistance predicts fatal outcome independently of underlying diseases.2 . . . [Full text of this article]


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