Overusing antibiotics posing a superbug threat

People across the world are alarmingly confused about the role of antibiotics and the right way to take them, and this ignorance is fueling the rise of drug-resistant superbugs, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

"The rise of antibiotic resistance is a global health crisis," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told reporters in a telebriefing from the organization's Geneva headquarters.

She said the problem was "reaching dangerously high levels" in all parts of the world and could lead to "the end of modern medicine as we know it".

Antibiotic resistance happens when bacteria mutate and adapt to . . .