Is this the end of the world as we know it? asks Health Correspondent Dave Morris.

There is nothing that the British public likes better than a really good health scare.

And now we’ve got another with the potential to cause us sleepless nights (or nightmares if we do manage to drop off) and turn us into a nation of nervous wrecks.

Scientists are warning that international travel and so-called medical tourism has helped the spread of drug-resistant bacteria that could lead to the end of antibiotics.

A new gene, NDM-1 has emerged which allows bacteria to be highly resistant to almost all antibiotics,and it has spread in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

But it has also been found in 37 patients from the UK, who travelled to India or Pakistan for medical procedures including cosmetic surgery.

I have to confess that my first reaction to hearing about this bug was one of “here we go again”.

We never seem to wait long for a new health scare but many of them prove to be unfounded or nowhere near as serious as we were led to believe.

It’s not that long ago that the world was in the grip of a swine flu pandemic with warnings that our society might grind to a halt.

Sadly it did result in deaths but thankfully not on the huge scale that some “experts” had predicted.

The MRSA superbug was causing a great deal of fear three or four years ago and many patients were afraid of going into hospital for treatment.

But the battle against this infection is being won and Shropshire hospitals have an excellent record in tackling it.

Do you remember that chilling ‘tombstone’ television advert back in 1987 warning of the dangers of AIDS and with the message “don’t die of ignorance”.

Yes AIDS is a problem – massively so in some African countries – and we need to be aware of it. But a study a couple of years back concluded that there was no threat of a global AIDS pandemic among heterosexuals which would wipe out billions.

Another scare that comes to mind is that mobile phones cause brain cancer and also, if you happen to be male and keep them in your trouser pockets, low sperm counts.

Come to think of it just about everything we eat, drink, wear or use has at some time been linked to cancer.

But back to the latest superbug. Should we be alarmed and take to the hills, shunning contact with fellow human beings to lessen the risk of being attacked by it?

Well of course we do need to show concern but at the same time we also need to keep things in perspective.

And that’s why I’m grateful to Professor Rod Thompson, director of public health at Shropshire County Primary Care Trust.

He told me that on one level NDM-1 is a concern, as any bug that is resistant to antibiotics makes it harder to treat.

But he said that good infection control measures, such as hand washing, will help prevent it from spreading.

All of us, he added, have a responsibility to ensure we follow such measures.

In the meantime we shouldn’t have to wait too long for the appearance of the next nasty threatening us with Armageddon!