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Antibiotic-resistant bacteria with the potential to cause untreatable infections pose "a catastrophic threat" to the population, the chief medical officer warns in a report calling for urgent action in Britain and worldwide.

If tough measures are not taken to restrict the use of antibiotics and no new ones are discovered, said Dame Sally Davies, "we will find ourselves in a health system not dissimilar to the early 19th century at some point".

While antibiotics are failing, new bacterial diseases are on the rise. Although the "superbugs" MRSA and C difficile have been reduced to low numbers in hospitals, there has been an alarming increase in other types of bacteria including new strains of E coli and Klebsiella, which causes pneumonia.

These so-called "gram negative" bacteria, which are found in the gut instead of on the skin, are highly dangerous to older and frailer people and few antibiotics remain effective against drug-resistant strains.

As many as 5,000 patients die each year in the UK of gram negative sepsis – where the bacterium gets into the bloodstream – and in half the cases the bacterium is resistant to drugs.

"Antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat," said Davies.

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"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,"

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i live my life like i could die any day

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lol, i knew all the medicines that people take just to get through the day would come back to bite them one day. i've been sick for the past 3 weeks, and i've been letting my immune system handle it. the way i see it, by taking cold medicine, you're not letting your immune system get the workout it needs to really fight what ails you. by taking so much medicine, people have weakened their immune systems to the point that if something bad comes along, they will need medicine just to live. and how much medicine can they make, for the billions of people across the world? can you say, placebo? the rich will get what they need, when the shatner hits the fan, while the rest of us will be suffering. i can see it happening. i'm not worried, tho. i live my life like i could die any day, so dying isn't really that big of a problem for me.

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Whatever the real danger, it's another reason why all borders need to be secure. What gets lost in the current hubbub about the security and tax issues is that effective borders are very necessary for containment & control measures regarding the spread of disease.

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Diagnosing active tuberculosis based merely on signs and symptoms is difficult,[54] as is diagnosing the disease in those who are immunosuppressed.[55] A diagnosis of TB should, however, be considered in those with signs of lung disease or constitutional symptoms lasting longer than two weeks.[55] A chest X-ray and multiple sputum cultures for acid-fast bacilli are typically part of the initial evaluation.[55] Interferon-γ release assays and tuberculin skin tests are of little use in the developing world.[56][57] IGRA have similar limitations in those with HIV.[57][58]

A definitive diagnosis of TB is made by identifying M. tuberculosis in a clinical sample (e.g. sputum, pus, or a tissue biopsy). However, the difficult culture process for this slow-growing organism can take two to six weeks for blood or sputum culture.[59] Thus, treatment is often begun before cultures are confirmed.[60]

Nucleic acid amplification tests and adenosine deaminase testing may allow rapid diagnosis of TB.[54] These tests, however, are not routinely recommended, as they rarely alter how a person is treated.[60] Blood tests to detect antibodies are not specific or sensitive, so they are not recommended.[61]

Latent tuberculosis


Mantoux tuberculin skin test
The Mantoux tuberculin skin test is often used to screen people at high risk for TB.[55] Those who have been previously immunized may have a false-positive test result.[62] The test may be falsely negative in those with sarcoidosis, Hodgkin's lymphoma, malnutrition, or most notably, in those who truly do have active tuberculosis.[1] Interferon gamma release assays (IGRAs), on a blood sample, are recommended in those who are positive to the Mantoux test.[60] These are not affected by immunization or most environmental mycobacteria, so they generate fewer false-positive results.[63] However they are affected by M. szulgai, M. marinum and M. kansasii.[64] IGRAs may increase sensitivity when used in addition to the skin test but may be less sensitive than the skin test when used alone

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Well, you cant train your immune system. The thing about bacteria is that that even if you get cured, you can get infected or re-infected by the same bacterium again. NO IMMUNITY.

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Well, you cant train your immune system. The thing about bacteria is that that even if you get cured, you can get infected or re-infected by the same bacterium again. NO IMMUNITY.

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Not true...Some people like myself are sensitive to certain type of bacteria, or activity that increases the chances of infection, but your body DOES adapt.

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What I meant was though immunity is impossible, you can train your body to be able to adapt, enabling it to deal with the problem when it arises.

Also what did your professor mean? Did he mean universal immunity to all bacteria is impossible? Or that you cannot be immune to any strain?

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In other words, if drug resistent lethal bacteria spread, we are snowed.

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