Fighting untreatable microbial infections and conditions
Europe and other developed regions have ageing societies that are increasingly susceptible to bacterial, fungal, and viral infectious diseases. At the same time, antibiotic resistance, accelerated by insufficient antibiotic stewardship and drug abuse in veterinary practice, is developing rapidly and catching up with previously effective measures to prevent or fight infections.
Untreatable microbial infections and conditions, like those occurring in the pre-antibiotic era, are rapidly emerging and will have a major impact on healthy ageing in the foreseeable future:
- In developed countries, untreatable infections pose an increasing threat to very young, frail older, immunocompromised, and critically ill individuals.
- In less privileged regions of the world, the burden of infectious diseases is much higher because untreatable infections, including multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and viral epidemics, pose serious threats to healthy individuals as well.
The MHD programme brings together expertise in drug research that is necessary for preventing infections, fighting infections, and protecting the potentially beneficial effects of microbes.