When Rose Cheung's mother died last year, she was devastated - and stunned. 'Mum just went in for knee surgery,' Cheung says. 'Three days after the operation, she got a high fever. The doctors gave her antibiotics by infusion, but nothing worked. The next day, mum was in the ICU with blood poisoning. She died two days later.
'I still can't believe they couldn't save her. She was just 64 years old.'
Cheung's mother was just one of many thousands of hospitalised patients to catch a highly drug-resistant infection.
Many types of antibiotics have been developed since penicillin was discovered nearly 80 years ago, and doctors have prescribed them for everything from acne to pneumonia. However, some bugs are outsmarting even the most advanced and powerful drugs.
Experts agree that our reliance on antibiotics has strengthened the superbugs. 'The biggest concern is the rampant overprescribing of antibiotics, which has led to the emergence of superbugs,' says Brian Walker, a local physician, writer and broadcaster. 'I'm also concerned that it's now too late to change either doctors' habits or patients' attitudes.'
It's about survival of the fittest - some strains of deadly bacteria have mutated so they can fight off an antibiotic attack. They become harder to kill and resistant to different drugs. Those that adapt to evade multiple types of antibiotic are called multidrug-resistant, or superbugs.