Currently, only two out of 11 major pharmaceutical companies are developing new antibiotics to combat evolving bacteria. Bacteria have the uncanny ability to ‘pick up’ the DNA from their dead friends. This means, unlike humans, bacteria can evolve very quickly; they can evolve faster than we can invent new antibiotics.   

This means as new strains of bacteria develop, we will be left defenceless. Companies are stopping their research programs toward antibiotics, because they are very expensive, and the profits are not nearly as good compared to producing anti-depressants or sleeping pills, for example. 

Bacteria are tiny organisms which can produce toxins and poison our blood. Thankfully, drugs like penicillin, save us from any nasty bacterial infections which used to be a death sentence. But the over-usage of antibiotics is leading us straight back to over a century ago, when pneumonia would be lethal.  

If you don’t finish your course of antibiotics, you have subdued the disease and won't have any symptoms. However, because you haven’t finished the full course, some of the bacteria are still living and can build up resistance to these antibiotics. Next time you get it, the antibiotics will be less effective and the bacteria stronger. Moreover, some patients demand antibiotics, when they are not necessary, which builds the resistance of dormant bacteria cells in your body. 

Furthermore, antibiotics are heavily used in agriculture as a preventative measure against disease, even if the animals are perfectly healthy. As a result, bacteria in the animals grows resistance. Eating this meat means we are ingesting these antibiotics when we are completely healthy, growing the bacteria existence even further. Thankfully, in January 2022, preventative treatment using antibiotics was made illegal, but is legal on sick animals.  

The more exposed to antibiotics the bacteria are, the more resistance they grow in combatting them. This means the next time illness occurs, the bacteria are more resistant to the drugs and less affected by them. In essence, we are home-growing these super-bugs that will one day bite us in the behind.  

Already, there are cases across the world, where perfectly healthy children, have fallen sick with, for example, bacterial tonsillitis. A simple bacterial infection which can be cured with the appropriate antibiotics, efficiently. However, we are seeing cases where the antibiotics are having no effect on the child’s worsening symptoms. Only after five different antibiotic courses is the child getting better. This is particularly frightening. due to short-sighted thinking and irresponsibility, simple diseases are becoming incredibly threatening.  

If we don't act soon, and start to raise awareness for these issues, we might be facing another pandemic, except his time there won't be any effective cure. It sounds macabre, and a little like a Sci-Fi movie, but the threat remains. We must start developing new medicines, before we are wiped out by a disease that no one considered dangerous.