Health experts have warned that urinary tract infections are becoming increasingly hard to treat, as the bacteria that cause them become resistant to antibiotics.
Scientists from the University of Hong Kong believe that antibiotics are being overused in the farming industry, causing resistant genes to be passed down the food chain from animals to humans.
They examined the bacteria Escherichia coli particularly, as it is responsible for the majority of UTIs,along with Ureaplasma Urealyticum and Gardnerella Vaginalis. When they examined samples from humans and animals, they discovered that antibiotic resistance was present.
In approximately 80% of the samples, the gene aacC2, which encodes resistance to the antibiotic gentamicin, was present. The samples were only from one area of the world, Hong Kong, but it is thought that further tests in other areas worldwide would show similar results.
Dr. Pak-Leung Ho, who lead the research, warned that international trade in meat and cattle meant that if resistance developed in one region, it could easily become global. He advised that authorities need to monitor the transmission of resistance more closely.
There are fears that even if one country cracks down on antibiotic resistance, global travel and trade means that will negate those efforts, meaning that united global action is the only solution.
There has also been research published indicating that the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea is becoming resistant to antibiotics, a story we have been monitoring closely.