By Peter Lloyd for MailOnline
Published: 12:48 GMT, 15 February 2019 | Updated: 12:48 GMT, 15 February 2019
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An economist has urged Governments all over the world to stockpile antibiotics in preparation for a pending flu outbreak.
Although antibiotics are ineffective against the viruses that cause flu, Ramanan Laxminarayan warns it is the secondary bacterial infections - such as pneumonia - that are most deadly.
As well as saving lives, a study found stockpiling the drugs would save governments billions in treatment costs and working days lost.
Prediction: Experts from the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in Washington DC have urged governments around the world to stockpile antibiotics (stock)
The research was carried out by the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in Washington DC.
The economists created a model that analysed the financial value of holding antibiotics to use in global flu outbreaks, The Telegraph reported.
Results - published in the journal Health Economics - revealed stockpiling the drugs would save global economies between $3 and $4 billion (around £2.3-to-£3.1 billion).
These savings would come from avoiding the financial impact of sick days and urgent healthcare, as well as the death toll, Mr Laxminarayan said.
Antibiotics have been doled out unnecessarily by GPs and hospital staff for decades, fueling once harmless bacteria to become superbugs.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has previously warned if nothing is done the world is heading for a 'post-antibiotic' era.
It claimed common infections, such as chlamydia, will become killers without immediate solutions to the growing crisis.
Bacteria can become drug resistant when people take incorrect doses of antibiotics or if they are given out unnecessarily.
Chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies claimed in 2016 that the threat of antibiotic resistance is as severe as terrorism.
Figures estimate that superbugs will kill 10 million people each year by 2050, with patients succumbing to once harmless bugs.
Around 700,000 people already die yearly due to drug-resistant infections including tuberculosis (TB), HIV and malaria across the world.
Concerns have repeatedly been raised that medicine will be taken back to the 'dark ages' if antibiotics are rendered ineffective in the coming years.
In addition to existing drugs becoming less effective, there have only been one or two new antibiotics developed in the last 30 years.
In September, the WHO warned
