The incorporation of antibiotics into our daily lives is one of the milestones of modern medicine. Significant advances such as transplants, major surgeries and the fight against cancer have been achieved, in part, thanks to these compounds.

employment However, from the very beginning, the discoverer of penicillin himself (Alexander Fleming) warned that the inappropriate use of these drugs could facilitate the rapid emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This phenomenon has been increasing, and the antibiotic arsenal accumulated over decades is being depleted.

Today, Sunday 18 November, is the European Day for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, which should serve as a reminder of the increasing emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria (superbugs), capable of infecting people in our environment. As a result of this problem, 33,000 people die every year in Europe from infections that cannot be treated with the antibiotics available to us. This figure, which exceeds issue of deaths from road traffic accidents and exceeds the combined effect of influenza, tuberculosis and AIDS on our continent, is likely to continue to grow if the selection and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is not halted. These dramatic mortality figures are also accompanied by a health cost overrun of 1.5 billion euros in the European Union.

There are different actors involved in this phenomenon of the emergence of resistant bacteria. Patients, doctors and pharmacists have a fundamental role to play in the optimal use of these drugs. Taking antibiotics not prescribed by the doctor, or not completing the treatment prescribed by the physician, are common situations that prevent the complete disappearance of the bacteria causing the infection. This is precisely what causes the survival of some of them, and the possibility that they may become resistant to the medicine. This problem, moreover, does not only affect the individual patient: resistant bacteria are then transmitted to other people. The phenomenon is also linked to the food industry, due to the excessive use of antibiotics in animals exhibition , which facilitates the consumption of multi-resistant bacteria in the products we eat.

Antibiotics - and this must be made clear - are not painkillers or allergy medicines, but drugs that can only kill bacteria. One of the most common mistakes in our environment is to use these compounds to cure diseases for which they are not active. Antibiotics, just as they are not effective in treating depression or diabetes, are not effective in treating viral infections such as flu or colds.

In Europe, one in three citizens think that flu can be cured with antibiotics. This percentage rises to half in the case of the Spanish population. This misconception, coupled with the fact that over the next few weeks more than one million people in our country will be affected by the flu virus, creates the perfect ecosystem for the inappropriate use of antibiotics to intensify resource .

Antibiotics and influenza are therefore an impossible mix. Two incompatible elements that we should not put on contact. The best strategy to reduce the impact of influenza in our society is vaccination against the virus. More than 300 million people worldwide receive this life-saving jab every year. Like antibiotics, the flu vaccine has been available at available for more than half a century and can safely and effectively reduce the issue number of deaths caused by the virus. If there are fewer flu infections, the unnecessary use of antibiotics is also reduced.

At the moment, mortality caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria is spiralling out of control. Some forecasts indicate that it could exceed the number of deaths caused by cancer. At the same time, we have knowledge and the strategies to act against the problem, as we have been doing since the National Antibiotic Resistance Plan. However, we all need to work together to make better use of the antibiotics we have, to prevent infections more effectively and to develop new molecules that will enable us to deal with bacterial diseases in the future.

If we remain static; if we let multi-resistant bacteria continue to proliferate, we could go back a century, back to the pre-antibiotic era, where unfortunately any infection could be fatal.