How new vaccines can help with our antibiotic dependence: Antibiotics are antimicrobial drugs used to kill bacteria. Along with vaccines, antibiotics often top lists of the most important medical discoveries, with both interventions having a tremendous impact on illness and deaths from communicable diseases.1
However, the usefulness of antibiotics to medicine is under threat. A national campaign in the UK called ‘Keep Antibiotics Working’ is trying to prevent antibiotic misuse and overuse by making the point that antibiotics are useless for many illnesses that they are asked for (for example, viral infections such as cold or flu) and contribute to the 5,000 deaths a year in England from untreatable illnesses.
Still it is poorer countries across the world that are likely to take the biggest toll from antibiotic-resistant infections.
