EDITORIAL Open Access n l o

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleTo the Forum experts, the current emergence in Europe of pan-resistant NDM-1 bacteria and the epidemic of multi-drug-resistant E. coli infections should be taken as a major public health warning, indicating that a new era of anti-microbial resistance has begun. This must lead to a global awakening: the protection of antibiotics has now entered the sphere of sustainable development. are resistant to all antibiotics. The ranking of these mes-sages was organized in 4 groups corresponding to distinct categories of stakeholders: national and international health authorities and policy makers, the medical and veterinary communities, the general public, and Industry. The results of the ranking are displayed in Additional file 3: Annex 3. Based on the results of the vote, the 24 messages have been synthesized to be easily presented as 12 actions to be implemented in the short to mid-term, as follows