The £8m Longitude Prize has been won after a decade-long competition to find new tools to tackle the scourge of superbugs. It has been awarded for a test that rapidly detects whether an infection is caused by bacteria and identifies the right antibiotics to treat it. The test takes 45 minutes, compared with three days using traditional methods.
The original work was done by Swedish researchers and the test is now being sold by the company Sysmex Astrego. The Longitude Prize - with a financial reward nearly 10 times that of a Nobel - was inspired by a contest in 1714. It was won by John Harrison, who developed a precise clock allowing sailors to pinpoint their position at sea - one of the greatest challenges of the 18th Century.
Fast forward 300 years - and the modern blight of superbugs was the focus. Infections that resist the drugs used to treat them are estimated to kill more than a million people every year. It is known as the silent pandemic.
“Without antibiotics, modern medicine as we know it is in real danger of collapse," UK special envoy on antimicrobial resistance Dame Sally Davies says. Every time an antibiotic is used creates an opportunity for bacteria in the body to evolve resistance to it. Resistance gives those bacteria a survival advantage and they spread, which is why the life-saving drugs should be used only when it is certain they will work.
The test works in urinary tract infections, which affect most women at some point and account for a fifth of anti.
