Discussing the potential “doomsday scenario” of a world without antibiotics, Professor Colin Garner, chief executive of Antibiotic Research UK (ANTRUK), says “not all is…bleak” as efforts are being made to remedy the situation
The serendipitous discovery by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928 that mould which had accidentally contaminated a bacterial plate of Staphylococcus caused the bacteria to be killed led to a new world of infectious agent treatment. As Fleming himself later said: "When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn't plan to revolutionise all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or bacteria killer, but I suppose that was exactly what I did." Who knows what might have happened if this accidental discovery had not been made.