Professor Michael Wallach, Director of the UTS Institute for the Biotechnology of Infectious Diseases has warned that antibiotic resistant microbes will thrive in Australia unless the public, academic and private sectors cooperate in the discovery of new methods of disease control.

Professor Wallach said inappropriate use of drugs in rearing livestock and treating people was contributing to the rise of 'super-bugs'.

Speaking at a recent UTSpeaks public lecture to fellow scientists and representatives of government and industry, he said a critical point had been reached in the use of traditional antibiotics and that new disease controls in livestock, such as vaccination, had to be properly researched and implemented.

"Some vets and physicians are prescribing older drugs, with greater side effects, because they are running out of new options, Professor Wallach said.

"This combined with many pharmaceutical companies abandoning expensive R&D into new antibiotics could mean future disaster for communities and farmers in Australia and throughout the world."

"We should be encouraging pharmaceutical companies to devote their considerable resources to innovative antibiotic research rather than casting blame which will simply lead to more companies withdrawing vital research."

Professor Wallach said his Institute had made great progress in developing vaccines for a range of infectious diseases afflicting farmed animals and humans and which do not produce side effects.

A vaccine against coccidiosis, for use in the poultry industry developed by Professor Wallach and several colleagues now enables farmers to immunise adult chickens that then pass their immunity on to their chicks.

Vaccines are preparations consisting of antigens of a disease-causing organism which, when introduced into the body, stimulate the production of specific antibodies or altered cells, providing immunity to the disease.

"We must develop and use new vaccines to replace anti-microbial agents as quickly as possible," Professor Wallach said.

"This will be costly as finding such solutions is expensive and may mean some of the cost is passed along to consumers. But the benefits are many – healthy drug-free foods and increased farm productivity minus the spectre of increasing drug resistant disease.

"The long-term savings of such preventative measures, however, would also be considerable compared with the ongoing wasteful use of ineffective antibiotics and livestock losses to once treatable diseases."

The UTS Institute for the Biotechnology of Infectious disease is conducting research into developing a number of vaccinations for livestock including parasitic worms, amoebic gill disease in farmed fish and malaria in human beings. Visit the Institute's website.