Rise of the Superbugs

There are so many different terms used to talk about antimicrobial resistance - AMR, multidrug resistance, One Health, antibiotic resistance, superbugs. It can be really confusing. In this episode we ask: how can we retell the superbug story? In this final episode of Rise of the Superbugs we're taking you behind the scenes and into the making of this series. It's been a bit of an experiment because it's part journalism and part academic research.Host and producer: Dr Britta Jorgensen. Pr...

Imagine a future where your access to antibiotics is determined by a court. Or where your antibiotic resistant infection is treated by a bacteria-eating virus. In this episode, we're looking back at our pre-antibiotic past and speculating on a post-antibiotic future, including a look at everything from innovative scientific discoveries to architectural possibilities to political solutions.Host and producer: Dr Britta Jorgensen. Producers: Sarah Mashman and Silvi Vann-Wall. Executive...

Our backyards are full of resistant microbes. In this episode, we find out how they spread through all living organisms - including our pets, our farm animals and our wildlife. We head to the south coast of Australia for some birdwatching, and find out why migratory birds act as a "canary in the coal mine" for the spread of superbugs in our environment and why we need to pay more attention to this. We speak to vets and pet owners about the use of antibiotics in our much-loved pets. We conside...

Do you trust your doctors and pharmacists to give you the right advice about antibiotics? Episode 3 takes us inside the healthcare system to tackle the problem of overprescription. We investigate trust in the practitioner-patient relationship and what happens when that trust is broken - particularly for our vulnerable populations. We look at ways to rebuild it, including social media, working with communities and listening to patients' lived experiences. We ask, who is responsible for the inc...

Superbugs develop their resistance to antibiotics by mixing and mingling with each other. Many superbugs travel on and in our bodies as we go back and forth overseas. But that isn’t the only way they move. In this episode we find out how superbugs spread in surprising ways and are found in the most remote locations. We find out why some countries are hotspots for resistance and what happens if you become infected with a superbug while travelling.Have a look at ResistanceMap, where you can see...

Most Australians will use antibiotics in our lifetimes but there is a lot we don’t understand about how they work. In Episode 1 of our series we find out how most of us use antibiotics, what we know about them and what we get wrong. We hear stories about some of the most common uses of antibiotics, the uncertainty about when we need them and the fear that drives us to seek them when we may not, particularly for our children. We learn that antimicrobial resistance is a more complex issue than ...

The world is now facing another looming health crisis - antimicrobial resistance (AMR) or "superbugs". The World Health Organisation has warned that we are headed towards a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections could become life-threatening.But the story of superbugs isn't as straightforward or as scary as it first sounds. In this new podcast, launched during World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2021, you’ll hear about the most common sources of resistant infections in Australia and t...