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David Cameron has appointed former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill to lead a team of experts to spur the development of a new generation of antibiotics to prevent a return to “the dark ages of medicine”.
The panel of experts has been asked to consider how governments could pay pharmaceutical companies to produce antibiotics even if they were rarely used, and how poorer countries could be encouraged to improve control of existing antibiotics.
Speaking to BBC News, the prime minister said: ‘There is a market failure; the pharmaceutical industry hasn’t been developing new classes of antibiotics, so we need to create incentives.’
As it stands, there has not been a new type of antibiotic drug developed for 25 years.
Drug-resistant bacteria are becoming an increasing threat, causing around 5,000 deaths each year in the UK and approximately 25,000 throughout Europe as a whole.
Resistance develops because of mutation, which can create so-called superbugs, such as prevalent hospital threat MRSA – a disease that can only be killed with the most powerful antibiotics.
However, if bacteria continue to develop further resistance in the future, the consequences could be devastating, potentially meaning antibiotics could not be used in a range of medical procedures, from joint replacements to organ transplants.
In addition, patients with cancer may not be able to receive chemotherapy treatment, which – unless an alternative therapy or a cure for the condition is found – would most likely lead to a significant increase in the number of deaths from the disease.
Before antibiotics were discovered, many women died following childbirth too, so if bacterial resistance becomes more prevalent, this could become a reality once again.
Mr Cameron added: ‘Penicillin was a great British invention by Alexander Fleming back in 1928. It’s good that Britain is taking the lead on this issue to solve what could otherwise be a really serious global health problem.’
Agencies/Canadajournal
