Why China is at heart of fight to head off antibiotic apocalypse
With superbug resistant to world’s last-resort antibiotic recently found in China, the day when common illnesses and routine surgery become life threatening, and organ transplants impossible, draws ever closer
In November 2013, Natalie Beatty, a 37-year-old Australian living in Hong Kong, noticed some small red lumps on her right foot and leg.
“At first I thought they were mosquito bites but when they started to swell, I headed to hospital.” A doctor prescribed antibiotics, and sent her home. The next day, the lumps had swollen into egg-shaped boils. “The largest one, on top of my foot, was the size of a mango cut in half.”
Beatty returned to hospital. The doctor lanced the biggest boil (“Loads of gunk came out. It was like something out of the movie Alien”) and took a swab for analysis.
“He called the next day and told me I had contracted MRSA,” Beatty recalls. “He advised me to google it, and then come straight back to hospital.” What she read horrified her. “It’s a race against time to get the right antibiotics to fight the infection because if it spreads to your bones, blood or brain, you could die or end up severely handicapped.”