细菌耐药性增加ntibiotics is becoming a critical problem worldwide. The European Union have set out a ‘roadmap against antibiotic resistance’ to tackle the issue in Europe. In the UK, England’s Chief Medical Officer has suggested the threat of antibiotic resistance is‘arguably as important as climate change for the world’.A new review byBassettiet al.published inAnnals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobialsdiscusses this fascinating issue and its implications for society, in addition to describing and analysing potential new antibiotics on the horizon.

Despite rigorous infection control, traditional healthcare-associated pathogens are now escaping into the broader community. These multidrug resistant pathogens have been named the ‘ESKAPE pathogens’ (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumanii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa,andEnterobacterspecies), reflecting their ability to ‘escape’ the effects of common antibiotics. Bassettiet al. explain that the problem is so serious due to the difficulty of finding new antibiotics which are effective against these multidrug resistant bacteria. Since 2000, only three new classes of antibiotics have been approved for human use, and many new antibiotics targeting highly resistant gram negative bacilli, which are needed as a priority, have not even reached phase 2 or 3 trials (only 7 since 2010).

In 2010, theInfectious Diseases Society of America(IDSA) supported an initiative,10 x ‘20, to develop ten new antibiotics by 2020. This review by Bassettiet al. investigates how close we are to achieving this goal by evaluating present data on old and new classes of antibiotics including cephalosporins, carbapenems, monobactams, aminoglycosides, oxazolidinones and glycopeptides. The authors provide an insight into the usefulness of each drug, and the ongoing trends in antimicrobial development.

This timely review highlights that there are a number of promising antibiotics in development at present. The development of these drugs can give confidence that that we will once again be able to treat bacterial diseases effectively and reliably in the future.