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The world — including Canada — is finally waking up to the worst public health threat of our times.

Last week, the World Health Organization and Canada’s Auditor-General independently issued similar warnings: that everyone must do much more to fight antimicrobial resistance.

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Their voices join a chorus that had already included the Government of Canada and the White House, which have announced plans of their own in the past month, and the British government, which launched a plan in 2013.

And so they should.

The antibiotics that we have come to take for granted are quickly losing their power to stop deadly diseases and infections. The end of antibiotics is right on our doorstep, and everyone is at risk.

Imagine a world without antibiotics. We’d return to a time when a skin infection had a one in 10 chance of causing death. When tuberculosis would again rage. When the very idea of a kidney transplant, a knee replacement, or beating cancer with chemotherapy would be unthinkable.