Antibiotic-resistant bugs may soon make routine operations ‘impossible’

ROUTINE operations could become ‘virtually impossible’ unless the threat posed by antibiotic resistance is tackled urgently, a study warns.

Researchers have uncovered ‘ catastrophic’ evidence that heavy use of the medication is gradually making it ineffective against bacteria.

In a study spanning more than 40 years, scientists found t hat half of patients who contract an infection after surgery cannot be treated with standard antibiotics.

The same is true for 39 per cent of women who develop an i nfection after a caesarean and 27 per cent of those following chemotherapy.

Researchers f rom the US warned that if health bosses do not get to grips with the looming crisis even the most common procedures will be impossible.

They calculate that if the effectiveness of antibiotics were to drop by less than a third, there would be 120,000 more infections and 6,300 deaths in the US every year. The study did not provide estimates for the UK, based on our smaller population the figure would be roughly 24,000 additional infections and 1,260 fatalities annually.

Antibiotics have become so overprescribed over the past 50 years that the bacteria they are meant to treat have gradually evolved to become resistant. Health experts including the Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies have repeatedly warned that patients could soon die from minor scratches and routine operations after contracting a lethal bug which cannot be treated.

In the US study, the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in Washington exam- ined 31 existing studies published between 1968 and 2011.

These had all looked at the effectiveness of antibiotics at preventing infections following routine surgery and chemotherapy for blood cancers.

The findings, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, show that 39 per cent of infections following C- sections or hysterectomies were caused by antibiotic-resistant bugs.

This rose to 51 per cent for patients who had been fitted with a pacemaker, 50 per cent following a biopsy for prostate cancer and 27 per cent after chemotherapy.

Dr Des Walsh, of the Medical Research Council, said: ‘If the antibiotics that we rely on to protect us after common surgery like caesareans, joint replacements, chemotherapy and transplant surgery, don’t work, it’s going to have a catastrophic effect on our healthcare system.’

Health watchdog NICE has already threatened to refer GPs to regulators if they continue to prescribe too many antibiotics.

‘Could die from minor scratches’