Fighting the biggest global threat

This week has seen a lot of attention around the issue of antimicrobial resistance, and more importantly, what is being done to fight it.

We have long known that antibiotics are evolving, and this poses a great risk to the future of health care. Last week the UK-based Longitude Prize 2014 announced that it is launching a global challenge, open to everyone, to create a cost-effective, accurate, rapid, and easy-to-use test for bacterial infections that will allow health professionals worldwide to administer the right antibiotics at the right time.

This week UK Prime Minister David Cameron also announced an independent review, led by the internationally renowned economist Jim O’Neill and co-funded and hosted by the world’s second largest medical research foundation, the Wellcome Trust, to explore the economic issues surrounding antimicrobial resistance.