What’s the Deal With….Antibiotic Resistance?
This week marks the World Health Organisation's 'World Antibiotic Awareness week', running from the 14th to the 20th of November. But why choose to have a week dedicated to these medications and why have antibiotics become such a headline grabber in recent years? The short answer is something most of us are aware of: antibiotic resistance, a phrase that sounds scary, and without beating around the bush, it is.
Since the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin, by Alexander Fleming in 1928, over 100 different anti-bacterial medications are now being used to treat infections globally. From tuberculosis to gonorrhoea, we often take for granted that if we become unwell, antibiotics will always be there to treat the infection. Even Fleming himself all those years ago warned that over-u...