'We really are facing a post-antibiotic APOCALYPSE': Chief medical officer warns of the 'end of modern medicine' unless action is taken to create new drugs to tackle deadly superbugs

tictac399 · 10/13/2017 8:02 AM EST

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The world is in danger of a 'post-antibiotic apocalypse' unless more is done to tackle superbugs, the chief medical officer has warned.

Professor Dame Sally Davies said that if antibiotics lose their effectiveness it will spell 'the end of modern medicine'.

Drugs - Sections - Cancer - Treatments - Hip

Without the drugs, caesarean sections, cancer treatments and hip replacements would become incredibly 'risky', she stressed.

It is estimated that the rise of super-bugs will kill 10 million people each year by 2050, unless scientific breakthroughs are made immediately.

Dame - Sally - Press - Association - Action

Dame Sally told the Press Association: 'We really are facing, if we don't take action now, a dreadful post-antibiotic apocalypse.

'I don't want to say to my children that I didn't do my best to protect them and their children.

Infections - Sections - Hip - Replacements - Surgery

'Not to be able to effectively treat infections means that caesarean sections, hip replacements, modern surgery, is risky. Modern cancer treatment is risky and transplant medicine becomes a thing of the past.'

Health experts have previously warned that resistance to antimicrobial drugs could cause a bigger threat to mankind than cancer.

Years - UK - Drive - Awareness - Threat

In recent years, the UK has led a drive to raise global awareness of the threat posed to modern medicine by antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Dame Sally, who has repeatedly warned of the dangers of superbugs, said that because AMR is 'hidden', people 'just let it pass'.

'catastrophic - Threat - Superbugs - Terrorism - Par

She has previously described the 'catastrophic' threat of superbugs as severe as terrorism and is on par with climate change.

Dame Sally Davies has also written to GPs warning that gonorrhoea, Britain’s second most common STI after chlamydia, could become an ‘untreatable disease’.