WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday announced a five-year plan to fight the threat posed by antibiotic-resistant bacteria amid fears that once-treatable germs could become deadly.
Repeated exposure to antibiotics can lead germs to become resistant to them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that drug-resistant bacteria cause 23,000 deaths and 2 million illnesses each year in the United States.
President Obama, who ordered the plan based on the recommendations of a task force he set up last fall, said drug-resistant bacteria represent a serious health issue.
‘‘We take antibiotics for granted for a lot of illnesses that can be deadly or debilitating,” he told reporters Friday before a meeting with his advisory council on science and technology. ‘‘If we start seeing those medicines diminish in effectiveness, we’re going to have problems.’’
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