British researchers have developed a new antibiotic using maggots which can be used to treat bugs including some strains of the drug-resistant bacteria MRSA, they announced on Tuesday.

The team from Swansea University in south Wales has created Seraticin, a drug made from the secretions of green bottle fly larvae.

They hope it will be turned into a treatment that can be injected, swallowed as a pill or used as an ointment.

Professor Norman Ratcliffe, who led the researchers, said there was more work to be done before the full benefits of the discovery could come to fruition.

"It takes approximately 20 mugs of maggots to yield just one drop of purified Seraticin at present," he said.

"Thus the next stage will be to... produce this chemically on a larger scale."

AFP