Today, patients undergoing routine treatments, such as cancer treatment, organ transplantation and hip and knee replacements, are routinely given antibiotics to prevent infection during therapy. Sadly the frequency of antibiotic resistant infections is increasing, meaning that there are more and more deaths from antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Sepsis is a common cause of death in the UK with over 44,000 deaths each year the young and old being most at risk. More people die from sepsis than lung cancer (35,000) and bowel cancer (16,000) and many of these sepsis deaths are due to untreatable antibiotic resistant infections. The devastating effect on peoples lives is already happening and we need to act now. 

If there were no new antibiotics, then any infections become untreatable. The failure to develop new antibiotics is of great concern and the large pharmaceutical companies are not currently incentivised to develop new therapies.

I want to help Antibiotic Research UK fund further discovery and raise awareness amongst the public regarding this critical issue. ARUK also needs support to put pressure on the government and the pharmaceutical companies to dedicate more resource into developing new therapies and treatments.