Antimicrobial resistance is a major threat to modern medicine. This course in Clinical Antibiotic Stewarship brought to you by the South African Antibiotic Stewardship Programme (SAASP) teaches the principles of antibiotic prescribing and an approach to common clinical problems.

The international community sits at the tipping pointof a post-­‐antibiotic era, where common bacterial infections are no longer treatable with the antibiotic armamentarium that exists. In South Africa, t ... he identification of the first case of pan-­‐resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae(Brink et al, J Clin Microbiol. 2013;51(1):369-­‐72) marks a watershed moment and highlights ourtip of the antibiotic resistance ‘iceberg’ in this country. Multi-­‐drug resistant (MDR)-­‐bacterial infections, predominantly in Gram-­‐negative bacteria such as Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosaand Acinetobacter baumanniiare now commonplace in South African hospitals. Whilst a number of expensive new antibiotics for Gram-­‐positive bacterial infections have been manufactured recently (some of which are licenced for usein South Africa), no new antibiotics active against Gram-­‐negative infections are expected in the next 10-­‐15years. Hence what we have now, needs conserving more