The collapse in antibiotic effectiveness could lead to a million deaths in Europe in the next decade, experts have claimed.
The prediction was made in advance of the conference of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease opening in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Saturday.
The figure is based on an estimate made in 2009 that up to 30,000 people in Europe were dying every year because of antimicrobial resistance.
Society president Professor Murat Akova said the spread of resistance was "jeopardising" modern health care.
The society says that in some countries the problem is being worsened by poor monitoring and control of drugs together with inadequate infection control in hospitals and other institutions.
Professor Akova said: "Deaths in the UK alone could very easily triple over the next 10-years. But focusing only on the death toll by antimicrobial resistance obfuscates the gigantic problem of not being able to offer patients many of the modern healthcare victories."
He added: "The worrying aspect for Europe is that there is clearly a huge risk, particularly across some of the Mediterranean states. However, no one really knows just how big the problem currently is, let alone how big it’s going to become in the future.
"Although, we could see European national numbers remain broadly the same, it is far more likely to double, treble or even quadruple in the next ten years."
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