The World Health Organization has warned that the world is running out of antibiotics, and that antimicrobial resistance is a global health emergency.
Publishing a new report, the head of the global health body said growing resistance to drugs that fight infections could "seriously jeopardise" progress made in modern medicine.
The WHO study identifies 13 families of multi-drug resistant pathogens that pose the greatest threat to human life and urgently require new treatments.
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Among them is drug resistant Tuberculosis, which kills a quarter of a million people a year, as well as bacteria that cause common infections like pneumonia or urinary tract infections.
The WHO says there are 51 new antibiotics in development to tackle resistant strains, but just eight are classed by it as innovative treatments that will help in the long term.
Specifically it points to a lack of treatment options for multi-drug and extensively drug resistant variants of TB, as well as Klebsiella and E.coli that are particularly prevalent and dangerous in nursing homes and hospitals.
The WHO says there is now an urgent need for more investment in research around antibiotic resistance, as well as improved infection and prevention control measures.
Without it, it warns, society will be forced back to a time when people feared common infections and risked their lives undergoing minor surgery.
