The increased prevalence of drug-resistant microbes is not just an impending problem – we consider drug resistance to be an urgent issue today (Report, 12 June). In our projects around the world we see people every day who have developed resistance to frontline drugs - often because they have been prescribed inappropriate drugs or regimens as the appropriate diagnostic tools do not exist. Antibiotic resistant bacteria are being seen wherever we have the tools to diagnose it.
In an MSF emergency project in Iraq, for example, many of the deep-wound infections we care for are infected with bacteria resistant to the second-, third-, even fourth-line drugs. Daily, MSF sees the human side of drug resistance. At the same time we are seeing major pharmaceutical companies abandoning research and development on drugs to suppress infection. There's a desperate need for increased research into new diagnostics and antibiotics and for them to be brought to market more quickly. Now is the time to tackle this problem – not to avert a future crisis, but to prevent an existing one from getting worse.
Dr Jennifer Cohn
Medical coordinator, MSF access campaign, Médecins Sans Frontières
• The use of antibiotics in agriculture is often ignored. So the proposal by England's chief medical officer for a UN treaty to ban antibiotics in food production is very welcome. Antibiotics are used, particularly in pig, poultry and fish farming because they promote growth and prevent disease from spreading rapidly in overcrowded intensive farms. A shocking 80% of antibiotics sold in the US are used in animals, and this massive misuse clearly allows drug-resistant bacteria to develop. A properly enforced UN treaty on antibiotics would mean that some of the worse aspects of industrial animal farming would no longer be viable, which would be a welcome boost to animal welfare, as well as helping to ensure that antibiotics are still able to save people's lives.
Development manager, Animal Aid