The need for new antibiotics

David Livermore*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    250 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Politicians and public health officials have joined specialist professionals in recognising antibiotic resistance as a threat to modern medicine. Their response has centred on minimising unnecessary antibiotic prescribing, aiming to reduce selection pressure for resistance. Despite a few hopeful trends (e.g., declining penicillin resistance among pneumococci in the UK), established resistance is proving hard to displace; moreover, new resistances continue to emerge and to proliferate at new sites. There consequently remains a strong need for new antibiotics, particularly those directed against multiresistant Gram-negative bacteria in hospitals. Already some nonfermenters of the genera Acinetobacter and Pseudomonas are resistant to all good antibiotics and many Enterobacteriaceae are resistant to all except carbapenems. There is also a growing need for new agents against community-acquired pathogens, including the agents of tuberculosis, gonorrhoea and urinary tract infections. Unless antibacterial development is re-energised, there is a serious risk that a growing proportion of infections, especially in hospitals, will become effectively untreatable.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1-9
    Number of pages9
    JournalClinical Microbiology and Infection, Supplement
    Volume10
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Nov 2004

    Keywords

    • Antibiotics
    • Multiresistance
    • Pharmaceutical development

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