Unprecedented efforts are being made to get medicines to people in poor countries to treat killer diseases such as Aids, tuberculosis and malaria. But too little attention is being paid to the real danger that these drugs will run out of impact. A report today from the Center for Global Development in Washington says we need to wake up – there are measures that can be taken to stop drug resistance building.

It’s always been a scourge of Europe and the USA. Penicillin long ago stopped being the miracle cure it once appeared to be. Other antibiotics took its place but resistance has developed to each one in turn and there is always a need for more.

But when drugs are precious, money is short and diseases all too often kill, as in the developing world, a failure to guard against drug resistance has especially difficult consequences. We have had MDR TB (multidrug-resistant tuberculosis) for some years. More recently came the first reports of XDR TB, extremely drug resistant tuberculosis, in South Africa. The drugs to treat it would not have been affordable even if they had been available.

Nancy Birdsall, president of CGD, put it this way:

Drug resistance […]