Drug-resistant bugs ‘as big a threat as climate change’
THE threat from drug-resistant infections puts us “on the cusp of a world where a simple graze could be deadly”, the Health and Social Care Secretary will warn today.
Matt Hancock will say they are as big a threat to humanity as climate change and will call for immediate action to cut the inappropriate use of antibiotics.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Hancock will say resistance needs to be treated as a global health emergency.
He is expected to unveil a target to cut the number of resistant infections and to reduce the use of antibiotics in humans even further. He will say: “Imagine a world without antibiotics. Where treatable infections become untreatable, where routine surgery like a hip operation becomes too risky to carry out, and where every wound is potentially life-threatening.
“What would go through your mind if your child cut their finger and you knew there was no antibiotic left that could treat an infection?
“This was the human condition until almost a century ago. I don’t want it to be the future for my children.
“Yet it may be unless we act. But the urgency is now. Each and every one of us benefits from antibiotics, but we all too easily take them for granted. Antimicrobial resistance is as big a danger to humanity as climate change or warfare.
“That’s why we need an urgent global response.”
The number of drug-resistant bloodstream infections has increased by 35 per cent from 2013 to 2017.
Chief medical officer for England, Professor Dame Sally Davies, said: “The threat of antimicrobial resistance cannot be overstated – without intervention it is not an exaggeration to say that we could return to the dark ages of medicine.”
HE PLAYS plumber Bert Large in Doc Martin, but off screen actor Ian McNeice reckons he has become an international sex symbol. Wherever he goes, he is mobbed by women of a certain age who want to kiss and cuddle him – and know what he wears in bed.
Ian, 68, knows they’ve fallen for the fictional character he’s played for the last 20 years. But he’s thrilled by all the attention.
He says: “It is true that I am actually a sex symbol, because I have this group called, ‘The Bert Large Lovers Group’ on Facebook.
“We now have over 1,700 members and they’re all women over 65, 70. Very attractive, some of them. Some of them maybe not so much, but there we go.
“They’re all in love with one person in particular and it’s not Martin Clunes – no. It is Bert Large. They follow me incessantly. They want to know what I eat, what I sleep in, who I sleep with, who I go to work with, and all the rest of it. They are a phenomenal bunch of people, so please join them. It is amazing quite frankly. These ladies on Facebook are in love with Bert, there’s no doubt. To them, he is a poster boy and I love every minute.
“They want to snuggle up, they want to be on my knee, kisses, all the rest of it. Yes, it’s a big deal and it’s exciting.”
Savvy Ian, who insists his partner Cindy Franke finds his lusty attention amusing, is keen to make hay while the sun shines. So he is capitalising on his irresistible sex appeal – all in the name of charity. He says: “I get asked for so many photographs from people. So in the summer months, I have a bucket that I carry with me and I say, ‘Sure, just put a pound in the bucket and have a photograph’.
“And I’ve collected over £2,000 to the Royal Lifeboat Association in the village and I give it to them and they’re extremely grateful for that.”
IAN is worried his time as a heartthrob might soon run out if a 10th series of ITV’s long-running drama Doc Martin isn’t commissioned. “I don’t want it to end,” says Ian. “But I have a nasty feeling that it will and that the next – the 9th – will be the final series that we’re going to do. I suppose all the people involved who make it want it to go out on a high. They don’t want it to sort of dribble down, which a lot of shows do.”
If it really does come to an end, Ian has just one hope for Bert before he says goodbye: a new hat and jumper.
He says: “It always cracks me up when I go and do my costume fitting for Bert and they bring out the same freaking costumes as I was wearing for the last 10 years. And I think to myself: ‘My budget for my clothes is going on everybody else. Where are my new clothes? I get nothing.’ I’m wearing the same gig. I’m wearing the same clothes. It’s sad.
“It’s the same blue jumper. It’s recognisable – we know where we are with this guy. I’ll probably be buried with it. It’ll go in the coffin because no one else is going to have it.
“Or maybe I could take Bert’s hat and as much costume as I could, because I’ve got to keep on doing conventions, baby. Let’s get the Doc Martin conventions out. I’ll have to be wearing the costume.”
Ian is no stranger to conventions, as his big role as Winston Churchill in Doctor Who means he’s still a fan favourite. “I’ve been doing the convention circuit ever since I appeared as Churchill in Doctor Who and it’s taken me all over the world. All those sci-fi conventions – it’s extraordinary and that is amazing.
“The fans are just extraordinary, because they all dress up as their favourite Doctor.”
The veteran actor has come a long way since starting out “shovelling **** ” off stage from ponies as a pantomime stage hand.
“When I first started at Salisbury Playhouse years ago as an assistant stage manager, we were doing Cinderella and we had little ponies that pulled the stagecoach for Cinderella. My job at 18 was to go to the coal house at the back of the theatre where the ponies were kept