Superbugs could kill up to 2.4m in three decades

Superbugs could kill 1.1 million people in North America and Australia and 1.3 million in Europe over the next 30 years, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. However, the authors added that simply by implementing sensible policies on handwashing and by cutting down on the overprescription of antibiotics the figure could be reduced by a million. Bacterial resistance is a natural and inevitable consequence of evolution, as microbes gain mutations that defend them from antibiotics.