A government forecast that as many as 80,000 people could die if there was an outbreak of a drug-resistant infection in Britain,. According to the report, about 200,000 people could fall victim to a bacterial blood infection if there was a widespread outbreak that existing antibiotics could not tackle. Even routine operations would become high-risk procedures and many elements of modern medicine, such as organ transplants, would be too dangerous, the report said. The numbers of infections complicated by antimicrobial resistance was expected to “increase markedly” over the next 20 years, it added. The report highlights the need for new technologies and methologies for understanding pathogens and how to best to combat them.