The superbug challenge

The threat of antibiotic-resistant pathogens is real

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently came out with its maiden list of antibiotic-resistant “priority pathogens”. It does not make a good reading for India since most of the 12 families of bacteria catalogued can be found in the country. The death of a US woman due to such a superbug, or a strain of bacteria immune to all available antibiotics, was a case in point. That death heightened the global disquiet over the growing menace of antibiotics resistance. But India is not alone. Most other countries are witnessing an alarming uptrend in microbial resistance to antibiotics. The WHO has