This is what...

Not being able to answer the question "do antibiotics kill viruses?" gets you.

‘Totally drug-resistant’ tuberculosis spreads in South Africa as researchers warn global outbreak would be ‘untreatable’

The world is facing outbreaks of “totally drug-resistant” tuberculosis if explosions of the bacteria in South Africa and other poorer nations are not addressed, according to a new papers published in Emerging Infectious Diseases. At this point, researchers are working to determine how the bacteria gains its invincibility, and how to isolate it.

Fears are mounting in medical communities worldwide that conventional treatments would be useless against the new disease, The Daily Mail‘s health site reports. They say doctors are warning “the world is on the brink of an outbreak of a deadly and ‘virtually untreatable’ strain of drug resistant tuberculosis unless immediate action is taken.” 

[...]

Researchers writing in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control journal warned in two new studies that the further outbreaks of drug resistant tuberculosis could devastate populations and economies of developing nations, particularly in the drug-resistant strain’s ground zero regions, such as in South Africa. Recent reports from 2012, however, drive home the importance of isolating drug-resistant TB, since the disease has also been popping up increasingly in wealthier Western cities such as London, where, of course, it can attack rich and poor indiscriminately.

Oh well. People not finishing their courses of antibiotics, people taking antibiotics for the flu, people using antibiotics in agriculture, people demanding antibiotics for the smallest thing, people intentionally going out and taking risky behaviour (ahem), which results in a need for antibiotics...

About one hundred years since the discovery of penicillin, bacteria are catching up, and at a frightening pace. Unfortunately, as the zombie populace proves, most people don't seem to care. I'll restate one of the things I believe in:

Those who abuse their rights or exercise them frivolously are going to lose them. People don't appear to want to use their perks in a responsible manner, so one way or the other, out the window they go.

Still, that's not all in the pestilence department:

Fourth case of SARS-like virus hits Britain

LONDON: A third member of a family has been diagnosed in Britain with a potentially fatal SARS-like virus, officials said Friday, bringing the number of confirmed cases worldwide to 12.

Britain's Health Protection Agency (HPA) said the latest person to contract novel coronavirus was a relative of two other cases announced earlier this week, who were admitted to intensive care wards at two British hospitals.

The first member of the family, who was confirmed on Monday as having the virus, had recently travelled to the Middle East and Pakistan. Their two relatives had no recent travel history.

Five people have died of the virus, according to the HPA -- three in Saudi Arabia and two in Jordan.

What makes SARS and the associated viruses so important is that they're related to viruses that cause colds and flus - and we all know how easily those can spread. This one doesn't seem too virulent at the moment, but it has them health folks on the edges of their toes.

Meh, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Remember that STD I posted a little while back that was impervious to all oral antibiotics? One can only wonder if mass pestilence is in our future. All the more reason to keep healthy, then.