Immediate action is required to hammer the increasing antibiotic resistant superbugs, President of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC) said.

BSAC President Prof. Laura Piddock said the overuse of antibiotics led to an increase in the number of multi-drug resistant bacteria, or so-called superbugs.

She warned that even the world was driving towards unthinkable scenario of untreatable infections as superbugs are capable of evading even the most powerful antibiotics available today.

Issuing warning against superbugs, she wrote in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, "The demise of antibacterial drug discovery brings the spectre of untreatable infections. To prevent this crisis immediate action is needed."

The European Centre for Disease Prevention & Control warned in its latest report that some countries in Europe have rates of resistance to antibiotics by bacteria of almost 50 per cent.

Rate of resistance to antibiotics by a bacterium called Klebsiella pneumoniae jumped by more than 100 per cent to 15 per cent, from 7 per cent nearly five years back.

Experts suggest that antibiotics should only be used at the right time and in the right way to ensure that medicines continue to remain effective for the present as well as for future generations.