York based charity, Antibiotic Research UK, has been awarded £10,000 by the Pavers Foundation. The donation was made to help support their vital work, tackling antibiotic resistance.
Antibiotic Research UK is the first UK charity to be created to tackle superbugs; it raises funds to develop new antibiotic therapies, to raise awareness amongst the public and professionals, and to support patients and their families with antibiotic resistant infections. Since founding, Antibiotic Research UK has raised approximately £1.5 million to fund its work.
Without effective antibiotics, modern medicine such as cancer treatments, organ transplants, childbirth, joint replacement and many more conditions would become impossible. Resistance, where bacterial infections are no longer treatable with antibiotics (superbugs) is on the rise throughout the world. Approximately 12,000 people die each year in the UK from resistance, a figure equal to that of deaths from breast or bowel cancer. Every day between 5-7 patients are admitted to York Hospital with difficult to treat infections. In some cases, these infections are life threatening leading to death through septicaemia.
The donation from the Pavers Foundation will help to fund a diagnostic test that identifies which antibiotic an infected patient will respond to.
“Widespread antibiotic resistance is one of the single greatest potential threats to human life that exist, but both media attention and government funding of research intended to combat this risk is lacking. The team at ANTRUK are doing fantastic work to try and address this situation, and we hope our donation will help further their cause."
Jason Paver, Director of Sales at Pavers and Chair of the Pavers Foundation
“We are extremely grateful to the Pavers Foundation for their generous donation to help us in our battle against superbugs. Although we are a national charity, our headquarters are here in York and we have a strong local presence through our York Volunteer Group chaired by local businessman Ashley Burgess. We work very closely with the clinical microbiologists at York Teaching Hospital so that York patients can directly benefit from our work.”
Colin Garner, Founder and Chief Executive of Antibiotic Research UK
To find out more about Antibiotic Research UK, head over to their website www.antibioticresearch.org.uk.
