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The Briefing Room

A world without antibiotics?

The Briefing Room

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.8731 Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2017

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Drug resistant infections cause 700,000 deaths a year and it's estimated that could rise to 10 million by 2050 unless major action is taken.

David Aaronovitch asks how can an antibiotic crisis can be averted?

Joining him in The Briefing Room are:

Clare Wilson, medical reporter with The New Scientist

Laura Piddock, professor of microbiology at Birmingham University

Jeremy Knox, head of policy on drug-resistant infections at health charity The Wellcome Trust

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is the BBC.

0:03.7

Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Oronovich.

0:07.2

We're in a room and we get briefed.

0:09.8

So if you really want to know what's going on in the world,

0:13.0

then do listen to this podcast.

0:14.6

And please let us know what you think

0:16.3

by writing a review or rating us on iTunes or your podcast provider.

0:20.8

If you're minded to do so, please recommend us to your friends.

0:24.8

Recommend us to anyone, really.

0:26.7

This week, antimicrobial resistance,

0:29.3

the problem of our antibiotics gradually not working anymore.

0:33.4

How scary is it?

0:35.0

And what can we do?

0:43.5

No. How scary is it? And what can we do? The antibiotic-resistance apocalypse is on its way if we don't stop it,

0:49.0

according to Dame Sally Davis, the chief medical officer for England and Wales.

0:53.7

The drugs we have are slowly beginning not to work.

0:58.5

Like many listeners, I'm only here because of them.

1:02.0

Six years ago, I very nearly died from septicemia.

1:05.5

What saved me, one of the things that saved me, was antibiotics.

1:09.7

But even now, hundreds of thousands die across the world

1:13.6

because bacteria and other microbes have become resistant to all available drugs.

1:18.6

To say healthcare professionals are concerned is an understatement.

...

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