Superbugs 'will make Covid-19 look minor'

The Covid-19 pandemic will "look minor" compared with what humanity faces from the growing number of superbugs resistant to drugs, Prof Dame Sally Davies, England's former chief medical officer, has warned.

- Kat Lay

Davies, now the UK special envoy on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), lost her goddaughter two years ago to an infection that could not be treated.

She paints a bleak picture of what could happen if the world fails to tackle the problem within the next decade, saying the issue is "more acute" than climate change. Drugresistant infections already kill at least 1.2 million people a year.

"It looks like a lot of people with untreatable infections, and we would have to move to isolating people who were untreatable in order not to infect their families and communities. So it's a really disastrous picture. It would make some of Covid look minor," said Davies, who is also the first female master of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Some infections caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites can no longer be treated. Exposure to drugs allows the bugs to evolve the ability to resist them, and overuse of drugs such as antibiotics accelerates that process. Widespread resistance would make much of modern medicine too risky, affecting treatments including caesarean sections, cancer interventions and organ transplantation.