MicrobeWorld

From swine flu to pneumonic plague - with E.coli in the mix - microbes have been making the headlines. Are they getting the better of us?

Whether its flesh-eating necrotising fasciitis or equine morbillivirus, in which the sufferer essentially drowns in fluid leaking from the lungs, infections - be they bacterial or viral - capture the imagination in a way that more workaday conditions such as cancer and heart disease cannot.

And indeed our battle to outwit the bacteria which have caused death and decimation down the centuries has revealed just what a formidable foe they can be.