Patient stories

Areti was just 13 years old when she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a cancer of the white blood cells. During her cancer treatment, she developed an infection with Klebsiella, a difficult-to-treat bacterium, which had developed resistance to most broad-spectrum antibiotics.

Cancer chemotherapy had weakened Mohammed’s immune system, allowing an infection with a highly resistant type of E. coli to take hold. His doctors were able to successfully treat him with last-line antibiotics.

Mallory Smith was born with cystic fibrosis but what killed her was bacterium called Burkholderia cenocepacia. It colonised her lungs when she was only 12 years old. What followed was 13 years of antibiotic treatments that worked until the bacterium became resistant to every single medication.  

Antibiotics are being "overprescribed", leading to greater resistance, a former patient says. Kelly Strudwick was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection. (Courtesy of BBC)

Iñaki Morán was diagnosed with COPD, a chronic respiratory disease, although he never smoked. For more than five years, he suffered repeated respiratory infections with multidrug-resistant bacteria, which necessitated hospitalisation and further reduced his lung capacity, until he received a double lung transplant.

Daphne Deckers, a Dutch author, television host and actor, campaigns to raise awareness about antibiotic resistance following her personal experience with an E.coli superbug infection (Courtesy of WHO/Europe)

Paolo fell ill with a serious urinary tract infection with an E. coli resistant to many antibiotics. It took two months and three courses of different antibiotics before his infection was successfully treated.

A healthy 11-year-old girl from Tucson, Ariz., who spent months in the hospital fighting several antibiotic-resistant infections and needed a lung transplant to save her life. (Courtesy of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, IDsociety.org)

A 19-year-old from the Seattle area battles several NDM-1 positive antibiotic-resistant infections as he recovers from a train accident that cost him his right leg. (Courtesy of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, IDsociety.org)

A 19-year-old from the Seattle area battles several NDM-1 positive antibiotic-resistant infections as he recovers from a train accident that cost him his right leg. (Courtesy of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, IDsociety.org)

A seemingly harmless ear infection turns into a life-threatening MRSA scare for a 2 ½ year old boy. Braxe's father tells his story. (Courtesy of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, IDsociety.org)

Just weeks after her wedding, Tatiana began feeling ill and was admitted to the hospital. The doctors then found out she had contracted MRSA. (Courtesy of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, IDsociety.org)

A healthy and active father in Southern California whose life was torn apart by a painful infection with ESBL-producing E. coli - an antibiotic-resistant super bug.(Courtesy of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, IDsociety.org)

Christian Lillis, son of Peggy Lillis, shares his personal story of losing his mother to an Clostridium difficile infection (C. difficile) caused by antibiotic use. (Courtesy of CDC)