It’s the frightening scenario that scientists have been warning about for years: sicknesses are growing because resistance to antibiotics is increasing.

A total of 2 million people get sick and 230,000 people die due to antibiotic resistance in the United States based on the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a Fox61.com report.

The CDC is even promoting a campaign to fight antibiotic resistance by raising awareness, and this report is part of that effort. It is warning people to take antibiotics only when necessary, as sometimes people take them to fight viruses, which doesn’t work. This includes, the flu, bronchitis, the common cold, and a number of other common infections.

Antibiotics should be used for bacterial infections, like strep through and whooping cough, for example.

What’s the big deal about antibiotics overuse? Scientists fear it is leading to the development of “superbugs,” allowing bacteria to learn ways to create infections that can’t be defeated by typical antibiotics.

This growing resistance to antibiotics is especially dangerous for people who aren’t healthy since they now have no way to treat their ailments. The worry is that a superbug could sweep through the population with no way for us to stop it.

And it’s not a problem for far off in the future: the CDC says that it’s become a problem now, and it is likely to only worsen in the future, but hopefully something can be done now before it’s too late.

“Antibiotics and similar drugs, together called antimicrobial agents, have been used for the last 70 years to treat patients who have infectious diseases,” the CDC says on its website. “Since the 1940s, these drugs have greatly reduced illness and death from infectious diseases. However, these drugs have been used so widely and for so long that the infectious organisms the antibiotics are designed to kill have adapted to them, making the drugs less effective.”