This is despite the UK having the highest death rate from respiratory diseases, and the highest levels of obesity in Europe.

BBC: Unhealthy old age shortest in UK

Dr Dagan said day care centres are ideal environments for the development of such resistance because they are associated with a high rate of respiratory infections that leads to a high rate of antibiotic use.

BBC: Nursery

Its jobless rate could approach levels seen in 2003, during the outbreak of SARS, a respiratory disease.

ECONOMIST: Annual soul-searching; secular decline