The discovery of antibiotics is one of the greatest medical breakthroughs of the 20th century. Before antibiotics, childbirth, a urinary tract infection, or a simple cut could lead to death from infection.
Antibiotics, a type of antimicrobial, have made many modern medical procedures possible, and now the global healthcare system relies on them.
Due to increasing antimicrobial use, microbes – such as bacteria, fungi and parasites – have developed the ability to resist the action of these medicines. The result is that common infections that were once easily treatable are becoming more difficult to cure and in some cases can be fatal.
