Slowly quietly

The world is being driven towards the hitherto unthinkable scenario of untreatable infections.
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Because of the growth of superbugs resistant to all antibiotics and the dwindling interest in developing new drugs to combat them.
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Reports are increasing across Europe of patients with infections that are nearly impossible to treat. 
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The European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) said that in some countries up to 50 per cent of cases of blood poisoning caused by one bug – K. pneumoniae, a common cause of urinary and respiratory conditions – were resistant to carbapenems, the most powerful class of antibiotics.
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Across Europe, the percentage of carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae has doubled from 7 per cent to 15 per cent. 
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The ECDC said it is "particularly worrying" because carbapenems are the last-line antibiotics for treatment of multi-drug-resistant infections.
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Marc Sprenger, the director, said: The situation is critical. 
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We need to declare a war against these bacteria.
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In 2009, carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae was established only in Greece, but by 2010, it had extended to Italy, Austria, Cyprus and Hungary. 
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The bacterium is present in the intestinal tract and is transmitted by touch.
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Resistant strains of E.coli also increased in 2011. 
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Between 25 and 50 per cent of E.coli infections in Italy and Spain were resistant to fluoroquinolones in 2010-2011, one of the most important antibiotics for treating the bacterium.
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In the UK, 70 patients have been identified carrying NDM-1-containing bacteria, an enzyme that destroys carbapenems. 
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Separate research has shown that more than 80 per cent of travellers returning from India to Europe carried the NDM gene in their gut.
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Researchers speak of a "nightmare scenario" if the gene for NDM-1 production is spread more widely.
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The UK Health Protection Agency warned doctors last month to abandon a drug usually used to treat a common sexually transmitted disease because it was no longer effective. 
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The agency said that gonorrhoea – which caused 17,000 infections in 2009 and even more in 2010 - 2011 – should be treated with two drugs instead of one and warned of a very real threat of untreatable gonorrhoea in the future.
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Discovering new medicines to treat resistant superbugs has proved increasingly difficult and costly – they are taken only for a short period and the commercial returns are low. 
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The European Commission yesterday launched a plan to boost research into new antibiotics, by promising accelerated approval for new drugs and funding for development through the the Innovative Medicines Initiative, a public-private collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry.
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An estimated 25,000 people die each year in the European Union from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. 
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Countries with the highest rates of resistant infections, such as Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria, also tended to be the ones with the highest use of antibiotics.
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World Health Organisation scientists warned two years ago that overuse of antibiotics risked returning the world to a pre-antibiotic era in which infections did not respond to treatment. 
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The warnings have been ignored.
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Professor Laura Piddock, president of the British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, said politicians and the public had been slow to appreciate the urgency of the situation. 
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In The Lancet, she writes: Antibiotics are not perceived as essential to health, despite such agents saving lives.
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Global action to develop new antibiotics is required, she says.
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The Department of Health published guidance aimed at curbing the overuse of antibiotics in hospitals, by avoiding long treatment and replacing broad-spectrum antibiotics with those targeted at the specific infection. 
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Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer, said: Many antibiotics are prescribed when they don't need to be.
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Jeremy Laurance
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Not wanting to notice is one thing.

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Not taking action is another.

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Meaning that we have yet again to accept that we are powerless in the face of some very unpleasant probabilities in the near future.

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Repetition of stupidity seems such a human trait.