วThis might read like the plot of a science fiction novel - but there is genuine fear that the world is heading into a post-antibiotic era.
The World Health Organization has warned that "many common infections will no longer have a cure and, once again, could kill unabated".
The US Centers of Disease Control has pointed to the emergence of "nightmare bacteria".
And the chief medical officer for England Prof Dame Sally Davies has evoked parallels with the "apocalypse".
Antibiotics kill bacteria, but the bugs are incredibly wily foes. Once you start treating them with a new drug, they find ways of surviving. New drugs are needed, which they then find ways to survive.
Deadly
As long as new drugs keep coming, resistance is not a problem. But there has not been a new class of antibiotics discovered since the 1980s.