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Sars scars

It used to be thought that humans had no natural predators, but today we know differently. The greatest threat to humanity comes from things that have lived on earth far longer than humans have, organisms that have been our rivals for supremacy, viruses and bacteria.

The first of the new threats comes as a result of our last great weapon, antibiotics, to which many bacteria are now becoming immune.

To fight, new emerging bacteria, antibiotics have been developed. We have designed a worldwide programme of inoculation. The problem is that bacteria and viruses are in stealth mutation mode and have fought back to change themselves so that vaccines and antibiotics are becoming largely ineffective.

Today, there are a wide variety of reasons for fearing the next superbug to emerge may be the one to devastate the human population once and for all.

The emergence of bacteria and viruses which are resistant to our defences is one problem, but another is the growth in global travel, which allows any deadly bug, appearing anywhere in the world, a lifeline to vast number of potential hosts.