Crack down on antibiotics amid fears their overuse will lead to drug-resistant superbugs, Britain urges G8 nations

Britain yesterday urged rich nations to clamp down on antibiotics amid fears their overuse will lead to the catastrophic spread of drug-resistant superbugs.

Science minister David Willetts urged his counterparts to impose restrictions, claiming the spread of antibiotic resistance could be as damaging to humanity as climate change.

He is proposing far-reaching measures that would clamp down on the overuse of antibiotics by GPs and hospital doctors.

He also wants to restrict usage on farms and fisheries, where the drugs are blended with feed to boost yields.

The minister also called for increased research to find new drugs to fight bacteria, and ways to strengthen cross-border surveillance for emerging resistant strains.

He told a national newspaper: ‘Across the G8, we should regard the spread of antibiotic resistance as a global challenge that is up there with climate change, water stress and environmental damage, and there are genuine policy consequences that follow from that.’

Science ministers from across the G8 - the world’s richest and most industrialised nations - met at the Royal Society in London yesterday.

It comes just months after England’s chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, warned that untreatable infections posed a ‘catastrophic threat’ to the population.

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She has asked for antibiotic resistance to be added to the government’s national risk register, a move that makes the issue easier to raise abroad.

‘The soaring number of antibiotic-resistant infections poses such a great threat to society that in 20 years’ time we could be taken back to a 19th century environment where everyday infections kill us as a result of routine operations,’ she said.

Drug-resistance is an inevitable consequence of antibiotics. The drugs wipe out the vast majority of bacteria causing infections, but a small number will always survive.

He is proposing far-reaching measures that would clamp down on the overuse of antibiotics by GPs and hospital doctors

These survivors are the most resistant, and will multiply into a new generation of more resistant organisms. In time, they can become immune to even the strongest antibiotics.

Resistant strains of life-threatening MRSA and C difficile ‘superbugs’ are already on the rise.

Doctors are also seeing ever more resistant strains of TB, E. coli and Klebsiella, which causes pneumonia.

Some 80 per cent of gonorrhoea is now resistant to the frontline antibiotic tetracycline. Of serious concern is the rise of resistance to powerful drugs called carbapenems, the antibiotics of last resort.

The first few cases were detected in Britain in 2003, but since then the numbers have soared to 217 cases in the first six months of 2011.