Thanks to the first antibiotic penicillin, people can live 30 years longer compared to the times before it appeared. However, now humanity risks losing this fight again, the newspaper writes.

The results of a recent study indicate that by 2050, more than 39 million people worldwide may die from infections caused by antibiotic-resistant microorganisms. Already, 35 thousand people die annually in the European Union alone from infections caused by resistant pathogens, reports EАDaily.com.

"Firstly, antibiotics are still prescribed too often in outpatient practice. Secondly, with the restoration of international travel after the pandemic, we receive a lot of resistant bacteria. Particularly high levels of sustainability are observed in countries such as Greece, Portugal, Turkey, as well as India and other Asian countries. People need to be warned: if someone brings such a bacterium from vacation and infects his sick grandfather with it, for example, it can become fatal for him," said Professor of intensive care Frank M. Brunkhorst from the University Clinic of Jena, indicating the main reasons for these changes.

According to experts, in many cases, antibiotics are not needed, for example, for almost all respiratory tract infections. These infections are usually caused by viruses against which antibiotics are ineffective. However, children who catch a cold often receive an excessive amount of medication. In addition, antibiotics are too easily prescribed for urinary tract infections such as cystitis, although in most cases this is not required.

The shortage of new antibiotics is exacerbating the crisis - only 12 new drugs have been approved since 2017.

Professor Yvonne Mast from the Leibniz Institute DSMZ in Braunschweig notes that the path from the discovery of a new substance to its application is long and expensive.