This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge. 

According to the latest study on antibiotic resistance mortality by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, antibiotic-resistant bacteria caused the deaths of around 31,000 to 39,000 people each year across 29 European countries between 2016 and 2020.

Superbugs Are Killing Antibiotics: We Are Running Out Of Ways To Treat Infections

European researchers are warning of the danger of over-dependence on antibiotics in human and veterinary medicine, which is driving the increase in bacterial resistance to antibiotics.

Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following chart an estimate of the number of deaths attributable to “superbugs” in relation to the population.

You will find more infographics at Statista

It shows that Greece, Italy, Romania, and Cyprus are among the European countries most seriously affected by this problem, with annual mortality rates of between 10 and 20 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants (2016 to 2020).

The lowest mortality rates on the continent were recorded in the Netherlands and Norway (2 per 100,000 inhabitants).

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Immune To Drugs: Superbugs Could Kill 10 Million Per Year

Superbugs have become an increasing problem.  With fungal infections and bacteria no longer responding to medications such as antibiotics, those infectious organisms have evolved beyond modern medicine.  If humans cannot find a way to treat people who become infected, 10 million per year could die worldwide of superbug infections.

Funguses and bacteria are evolving faster than humans. In the United States alone, microbial-resistant infections have killed 23,000 and sickened 2 million per year and hospitals are the breeding grounds for these infectious organisms. -SHTFPlan

In an effort to combat antibiotic-resistant superbugs, scientists have created “living antibiotics” made of viruses that have been genetically modified using the gene-editing tool CRISPR, according to a report by NPR. “If we’re successful, this revolutionizes the treatment of infections,” says Michael Priebe, a doctor who heads the spinal cord injury service at the VA medical center. “This can be the game changer that takes us out of this arms race with the resistant bacteria and allows us to use a totally different mechanism to fight the pathogenic bacteria that are infecting us.”

But this is still a race.  And right now, it’s “ifs” doctors are messing with, not “whens.”