Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

THE discovery of bacteria that are massively resistant to antibiotics won’t make the front page these days – but when it happens in Antarctica, it is time to sit up and take notice (see “Superbugs spied off the Antarctic coast“).

The superbugs aren’t infecting penguins – yet – or even troubling the researchers who carried them there in their intestines and unwittingly deposited them in the sea via their sewage outfalls. But the discovery is further evidence that antibiotic resistance is no longer just a medical problem – it is an environmental one too. And that makes fighting it much harder.

We used to think the genes that enable bacteria to resist antibiotics would die out unless those antibiotics were around to give their carriers an evolutionary advantage. That should make the genes relatively easy to stamp out. As we reported last July, however, they persist even when they’re nowhere near antibiotics. Resistance genes anywhere become resistance genes everywhere – and don’t go away.

Before the 1950s many otherwise healthy people died of bacterial infections. They will do so again if we don’t wake up to the extent of the problem now.