The pillar of modern medicine is beginning to lose potency: Alexander Fleming, credited in 1928 with creating penicillin, the first antibiotic, said “there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to nonlethal quantities of the drug make them resistant,” while accepting his 1945 Nobel Prize. In only the fourth ever high-level meeting for a health issue, all 193 member states signed a declaration last week to combat the proliferation of antibiotic resistance. An estimated 700k people die each year due to drug-resistant infections. “The emergence of bacterial resistance is outpacing the world’s capacity for antibiotic discovery,” Director General for the World Health Organization Margaret Chan said. “The world is heading to a post-antibiotic era in which common infections, especially those caused by gram-negative bacteria, will once again kill,” reports The Guardian. Signatories of the UN declaration committed to encouraging innovation in antibiotic development, increasing public awareness of the threat and developing surveillance and regulatory systems on the use and sales of antimicrobial medicine for humans and animals. Only three other health issues have been the subject of general assembly high-level meetings: HIV/Aids, non-communicable diseases and Ebola.