Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem, but solutions do exist – expert Q&A

Antibiotic resistance is getting worse, but it's far from hopeless — that's the takeaway from an expert Q&A published by The Conversation. Dr Sam Willcocks of Brunel University London explains that so-called superbugs, bacteria resistant to several drugs at once, are now linked to around four point seven million deaths a year, a toll researchers warn could climb past eight million annually by twenty fifty if nothing changes. The drivers are everywhere: overuse in hospitals, huge quantities handed to healthy farm animals, and antibiotics leaking into soil and rivers. But Willcocks points to concrete fixes — new classes of drugs, viruses called phages that hunt bacteria, tighter prescribing, and simply stopping infections in the first place through vaccines, clean water and better hygiene.

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