President Obama pledges funding for pharmaceutical development

US president Barack Obama has pledged that a significant proportion of his government's 2016 budget will be spent on tackling the issue of antibiotic resistance.

He has announced plans to double the amount of cash that will be allocated to this cause, taking it to more than $1.2 billion (7.97 million pounds) in total.

In particular, some $650 million will be given to the National Institutes of Health and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

This funding will allow pharmaceutical firms to invest in the development of potential new antibiotics to combat the increasingly prevalent issue of drug resistance, whereby people's immune systems could get so used to treatments that they no longer respond to them, meaning even the most minor of infections could result in a tragedy – something that is a global, not just a US-specific, concern.

In a statement from the White House, president Obama said: "We now have a national strategy to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria, to better protect our children and grandchildren from the reemergence of diseases and infections that the world conquered decades ago."