England’s top doctor sees growing resistance to antibiotics as ‘ticking time bomb’

Medical experts in England say the growing resistance to antibiotics is a “ticking time bomb” that rivals terrorism as a threat to the human population.

“If we don’t take action, then we may all be back in an almost 19th century environment where infections kill us as a result of routine operations,” said Professor Dame Sally, England’s chief medical officer, the BBC reports. “[It’s a] ticking time bomb.”

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The threat is so real that it should be ranked alongside terrorism, she said, in the BBC report.

Pharmaceutical companies need to speed up development of new medicines that can counter the strengthening bacteria and disease, she said. Nothing’s really been created since the late 1980s — and though deaths due to disease have declined, that trend could soon reverse itself. Seven percent of all of England’s deaths are due to bacteria and disease that should have been treatable, Ms. Sally said.

“We haven’t had a new class of antibiotics since the late 80s and there are very few antibiotics in the pipeline of the big pharmaceutical companies that develop and make drugs,” she said, BBC reports.

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