Multi-drug resistant bacteria “are increasing their grip in Europe with rates of drug resistance in one type of bacteria reaching 50 percent in the worst-hit countries, health officials said Thursday,” Reuters reports. “In a report [.pdf] on multi-drug resistant bacteria, … the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease across the European Union, said the need to combat resistance was ‘critical,'” the news agency writes, adding, “To a large extent, antibiotic resistance is driven by the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, which encourages bacteria to develop new ways of overcoming them” (Kelland, 11/17).

The report was released on the 4th European Antibiotic Awareness Day, which aims “to raise awareness about growing resistance to last-line antibiotics in Europe and to foster national campaigns across Europe,” according to an ECDC press release (11/17).