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The world is doing far too little to combat the misuse of antibiotics which is fuelling drug resistance and allowing long-treatable diseases to become killers, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, AFP reported. 

In its first ever analysis of how countries are responding to the problem of antimicrobial resistance - when bugs become immune to existing drugs - the U.N. health agency revealed "major gaps" in all six regions of the world.

"This is the single greatest challenge in infectious diseases today," Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director general for health security, said in a statement.

"All types of microbes, including many viruses and parasites, are becoming resistant to medicines," he warned, voicing particular concern over "bacteria that are progressively less treatable by available antibiotics."

"This is happening in all parts of the world, so all countries must do their part to tackle this global threat," he said.

A year ago, WHO issued a hard-hitting study on the phenomenon, cautioning that without significant action the world would be headed for "a post-antibiotic era," where people will be dying from common infections and minor injuries.

The U.N. agency has since conducted a survey of 133 countries asking governments to assess their response to resistance to antimicrobial medicines used to treat conditions like pneumonia, tuberculosis, malaria and HIV.