Superbug could kill over a million in Europe by 2025

An “antibiotic Armageddon” could result in a superbug death toll of more than a million across Europe by 2025, experts have warned.

According to the latest evidence, 400,000 people have already died since the emergence of large-scale antibiotic resistance in the last decade.

This figure is set to more than double in the next 10 years, say scientists from the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

“The really worrying aspect is no one yet knows just how great this problem is. The real issue is that all the existing antibiotics we have are becoming less effective as people continue to use them unnecessarily,” said the society’s president Murat Akova.

“Deaths in the UK alone could very easily triple over the next 10 years. However, focusing only on the death toll by anti-microbial resistance obfuscates the gigantic problem of not being able to offer patients many of the modern healthcare victories.

“The rapid increase in anti-microbial resistance in Europe and the world is jeopardising modern healthcare. And resistance is spreading to the UK from across other European nations,” he said.

The society issued its warning on the eve of its annual conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, next week.

The forecast is based on the latest available data on infection deaths and known rates of microbial resistance in different parts of Europe.

In the UK alone, infections already claim around 10,000 lives each year, said the society. Only a handful of new antibiotics have been developed in the last few decades as new drugs with novel formulations are becoming increasingly difficult to produce.