“It is a very scary moment.”

That’s how former NFL player Brandon Noble recently described his career-ending, antibiotic-resistant infection — and the disclosure from his doctors that the available antibiotics might not be able to save his life.

The same could be said of the moment we find ourselves in now: a nearly 40-year drought of urgently needed new types of antibiotics, leaving us not even close to keeping pace with the increasingly resistant superbugs that continue to emerge and spread.

According to a recent study published in “The Lancet,” the 1.27 million people killed by antibiotic-resistant bacteria in 2019 exceed the annual toll from either HIV or malaria. Alarming new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as previous research from The Pew Charitable Trusts and others, indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this threat. By 2050, as many as 10 million people could die each year as a result of antibiotic resistance. And without effective antibiotics, common medical procedures that rely on infection control and prevention measures — such as chemotherapy, cesarean sections, dialysis and many others — could become too dangerous. But the danger isn’t limited to serious infections or wounds: Even simple ones can turn deadly when no adequate treatment is available.

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