A top British medical official says the rise in drug resistant infections is comparable to the threat of global warming.
Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, says bacteria are becoming resistant to current drugs and there are few antibiotics to replace them.
She has told a committee of MPs that going for a routine operation could become deadly due to the threat of infection and it is a global problem and needs much more attention, the BBC reports.
While antibiotics have been one of the greatest success stories in medicine, bacteria rapidly adapt and find new ways to evade drugs.
There are growing reports of resistance in strains of E. coli, tuberculosis and gonorrhoea.