Antibiotics have been around for less than a century. But as resistant bacteria become increasingly difficult to treat, we risk a greater number of deaths from infections.
These days, we don't think much about being able to access a course of antibiotics to head off an infection. But that wasn't always the case — antibiotics have been available for less than a century.
He was hospitalised but despite various treatments, the infection progressed to involve his head. This required removing one of his eyes.Howard Florey, the Australian pharmacologist then working in Oxford, was concerned penicillin could be toxic in humans. Therefore, he felt it was only ethical to give this new drug to a patient in a desperate condition.
But back then, penicillin was difficult to produce. One way of extending the limited supply was to "recycle" penicillin that was excreted in the patient's urine. Despite this, supplies ran out by the fifth day of Alexander's treatment. We now face a world where we are potentially running out of antibiotics — not because of difficulties manufacturing them, but because they're losing their effectiveness.We currently use antibiotics in humans and animals for a variety of reasons. Antibiotics reduce the duration of illness and the chance of death from infection. They also prevent infections in people who are at high risk, such as patients undergoing surgery and those with weakened immune systems.