9 November 2017, Geneva/Rome/Paris--- In the lead-up to World Antibiotic Awareness Week (13-19 November 2017), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are together calling for responsible use of antibiotics in humans and animals to help reduce the emergence of antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotic resistance is rising to dangerously high levels in all parts of the world and threatening our ability to treat common infectious diseases. Infections affecting people – including pneumonia, tuberculosis, blood poisoning and gonorrhoea – and animals alike are becoming harder, and sometimes impossible, to treat as antibiotics become less effective.