We are on the verge of a post-antibiotic era

Three years ago, the World Health Organisation issued an urgent warning: "the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries, which have been treatable for decades, can once again kill". On September 20, the WHO published a new report that showed that the world is now running out of antibiotics. We are on the verge of a post-antibiotic era.

Antibiotics are developed from molecules produced by bacteria and fungi that are toxic to other bacteria. Ever since the Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin in a mould that destroyed bacteria growing in a culture plate in his lab in 1928, millions of lives have been saved by antibiotics. But antibiotic therapy has always been vulnerable to resistance. A few bacteria that are genetically resistant to antibiotics survive in human bodies even after treatment has wiped out virtually all the disease-causing bacteria. The survivors then transfer their biological invulnerability to their own species and to others, spawning a bacteria capable of resisting, at its most tenacious, the whole gamut of antibiotic drugs in human hands.

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World Health Organisation report warns antibiotics are running out

Combat medics alarmed at resistance to antibiotics

The hidden costs of antibiotics overuse

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The multiplication of multiple-drug resistant bacteria is the product of overuse of antibiotics: the threat of extinction activates genetic countermeasures in the bacteria. Overexposure to drugs is turning our bodies into factories of drug-resistant killers. Consider a disturbing case study released by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this year of an elderly woman who checked into a hospital in Nevada with a bacterial infection. The bug she was carrying was resistant to 26 different antibiotics, virtually everything in the arsenal of the medical team treating her, and she died a few weeks later of septic shock. In India, the world's second most populous nation, the over-prescription of antibiotics, coupled with poor sanitation, has caused a proliferation of multiple-drug resistant microorganisms.

Pharmaceutical innovation has plummeted just at the time when it’s most needed. Only two new classes of antibiotics have appeared in the past three decades. This is because drug companies do not want to invest in the production of medicines that will have commercial utility only after others in their class have become fully obsolete. Non-profit organisations are attempting to plug the void created by the gradual exit of Big Pharma.

The charitable health foundation Wellcome has been joined by the governments of Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland and Britain in a pledge to contribute €56 million (Dh246.4 million) to the WHO's efforts to develop new antibiotics. To say that this sum is not commensurate to the threat the world faces would be an understatement. A world without antibiotics will be a world in which tuberculosis will re-emerge as a mass killer, routine surgeries will carry the risk of potential death and urinary tract infections will become hard to treat. There are many causes that demand the world's attention. But the pace at which we are entering a post-antibiotic era calls for urgent coordinated global action.

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How to invest in gold

Investors can tap into the gold price by purchasing physical jewellery, coins and even gold bars, but these need to be stored safely and possibly insured.

A cheaper and more straightforward way to benefit from gold price growth is to buy an exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Most advisers suggest sticking to “physical” ETFs. These hold actual gold bullion, bars and coins in a vault on investors’ behalf. Others do not hold gold but use derivatives to track the price instead, adding an extra layer of risk. The two biggest physical gold ETFs are SPDR Gold Trust and iShares Gold Trust.

Another way to invest in gold’s success is to buy gold mining stocks, but Mr Gravier says this brings added risks and can be more volatile. “They have a serious downside potential should the price consolidate.”

Mr Kyprianou says gold and gold miners are two different asset classes. “One is a commodity and the other is a company stock, which means they behave differently.”

Mining companies are a business, susceptible to other market forces, such as worker availability, health and safety, strikes, debt levels, and so on. “These have nothing to do with gold at all. It means that some companies will survive, others won’t.”

By contrast, when gold is mined, it just sits in a vault. “It doesn’t even rust, which means it retains its value,” Mr Kyprianou says.

You may already have exposure to gold miners in your portfolio, say, through an international ETF or actively managed mutual fund.

You could spread this risk with an actively managed fund that invests in a spread of gold miners, with the best known being BlackRock Gold & General. It is up an incredible 55 per cent over the past year, and 240 per cent over five years. As always, past performance is no guide to the future.