The World Health Organization has said that people across the world are alarmingly confused about the role of antibiotics, and that this ignorance is fuelling the rise of drug-resistant superbugs.
Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO said on Monday that the problem is an increasingly worldwide one.
"The rise of antibiotic resistance is a global crisis. More and more governments recognise the importance of this issue and as one of the greatest threats to health today. The threat is easy to describe - Antimicrobiol resistance is on the rise in every region of the world."
Over-use and misuse of antibiotics exacerbates the development of drug-resistant bacteria, often called superbugs.
The WHO said around a third of people surveyed wrongly believed they should stop taking antibiotics when they feel better, rather than completing the prescribed treatment course.
WHO's special representative for antimicrobial resistance, Keiji Fukuda, stressed the urgent need to improve understanding around antibiotic resistance.
"The reason why this is so important is that, this overuse and this misuse of these medicines, is taking what happens normally, resistance can't develop normally; it's just really accelerating the process. It's really jumping it up to a much faster speed."
The United Nations health agency said 64 percent of those asked believed wrongly that penicillin-based drugs and other antibiotics can treat colds and flu, despite the fact such medicines have no impact on viruses.
Experts urged doctors to dissuade patients from demanding antibiotics for infections they can't treat, and persuade them to use the drugs strictly according to prescriptions.