Antibiotic resistance

Ability of pathogenic bacteria to survive one or more antibiotics that previously neutralised them. Recognised by the WHO as one of the top ten global public health threats. An analysis published in The Lancet (2022) associated it with approximately 1.27 million direct deaths in 2019, with projections reaching 10 million per year by 2050 without new strategies. Phage therapy is among the most studied alternative or complementary avenues, due to its action specificity and the absence of cross-resistance with antibiotics.