Foreign media: "Superbugs" are more deadly than AIDS and malaria

New research suggests that drug-resistant bacteria kill more than 1.2 million people worldwide a year, and these "superbugs" have joined the ranks of the world's leading infectious disease killers, the Associated Press reported jan. 20.

The new assessment, published Thursday in the British medical weekly The Lancet, is not a complete statistic of such deaths, but rather an attempt to fill a gap left by countries that report little or no data on bacterial deaths.

A global estimate that the World Health Organization has been citing suggests that at least 700,000 people die each year from antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But health officials have long acknowledged that there are many countries that provide little information.

Antibiotic resistance emerges when bacteria have the ability to fight the drugs used to kill them.

IN A STATEMENT, WHO officials said the new study "clearly shows" that drug-resistant bacteria pose an "existential threat."

Over the past few decades, health officials have tried to step up efforts to find funding and solutions. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in 2019 that more than 35,000 Americans die each year from antibiotic-resistant infections, or about 1 percent of such infections.

In the new study, the researchers estimated the number of deaths associated with 23 bacteria in 204 countries and territories in 2019. They used data from hospitals, surveillance systems, other studies and other sources to estimate the number of deaths around the world.

They concluded that more than 1.2 million people died from bacterial infections that were resistant to antibiotics in 2019.

Christopher Murray of the University of Washington, co-author of the study, said in a statement: "Previous evaluative studies predict that 10 million people will die each year from antibiotic resistance by 2050, but we can now be sure that we are well closer to that number than we thought." ”

According to the BBC website reported on January 20, one of the largest studies to date showed that more than 1.2 million people died from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections worldwide in 2019.

That's more than the number of people worldwide die each year from malaria or AIDS.

Poorer countries are the most affected, but antibiotic resistance threatens everyone's health, the report said.

The report recommends that, as a precautionary measure, investments should be made urgently in the development of new drugs and the more informed use of existing drugs.

The continued misuse of antibiotics (treatment for minor infections) means that antibiotics are becoming less effective in treating serious infections. Meanwhile, people are dying from common, previously treatable infections. The reason for this is that the bacteria that cause the infection have become resistant to antibiotic treatment.

UK health officials have recently warned that antibiotic resistance could become a "hidden pandemic" in the wake of COVID-19 unless we use antibiotics responsibly and responsibly.

In the latest study, led by the University of Washington, researchers estimate that in addition to directly causing more than 1.2 million deaths, as many as 5 million deaths in 2019 are also related to antibiotic resistance.

In the same year, 860 000 people were believed to have died of AIDS and 640,000 from malaria.

The majority of antibiotic-resistant deaths in 2019 were caused by lower respiratory tract infections, such as pneumonia and bloodstream infections, which can lead to sepsis. Among them, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is particularly deadly. In addition, several bacteria such as E. coli are also associated with high drug resistance.

The researchers say children are at the greatest risk, with about one in five deaths related to antibiotic resistance occurring in children under 5 years of age.

The number of deaths from antibiotic resistance is estimated to be highest in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, at 24 per 100,000 people, and lowest in high-income countries, at 13 per 100,000.

Source: Reference News Network