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January 22, 2022 – Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, we were all there. You wake up with a disgusting feeling – a headache, a sore throat, a cough – and find the strength to go to the doctor. What you really want is validation – yes, something is happening – and a prescription that will kill the disease in a day or two at most.
The doctor then uses the word “V”. They tell you that the rapid streptococcal test is negative, so you probably have a virus. Instead of a strong antibiotic, you need rest, fluids and time for your body to fight the infection.
You’re coming home depressed – why couldn’t I take an antibiotic, just in case? What is the harm?
More than 1.2 million deaths worldwide in 2019 alone: This is a serious estimate in the largest study to date examining the growing public health challenge from antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Researchers from UCLA, the University of Washington and other leading institutions are working together on an ambitious study to look at the number of deaths from bacterial antimicrobial resistance (AMR) worldwide.
In the past, bacteria would die and the infection would clear up because antibiotics worked like a machine to kill bacteria. Unfortunately, due to excessive use of antibiotics and other things, these machines are shaking.
Nowadays, many common antibiotics no longer work as well against some of the most common – and in some cases the most serious – bacterial infections.
“If left unchecked, the spread of AMR could make many bacterial pathogens much more deadly in the future than they are today,” the researchers said in a study published online Thursday. The lancet.
To make matters worse, there is no financial incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop new antibiotics to take their place. Many antibiotics have been on the market for so long that you can get them as cheap generic drugs. This means that companies are likely to lose money, not make money from new drugs.
How can the average American make a difference? Do not insist on an antibiotic in a doctor’s office when it is not recommended. Choose meat without antibiotics in the grocery store. Practice good hand hygiene to avoid getting sick in the first place. And realize that even if we raid the AMR in the United States, the challenge is even greater in lower- and middle-income countries.
Millions of lives have already been lost
Experts studied antibacterial resistance in 204 countries and territories around the world and estimated that 1.27 million deaths could be prevented in 2019.
Even more deaths could have been prevented this year if these resistant infections had been changed to no infections at all. Research shows that almost 5 million people worldwide can still be alive.
Based on the numbers in this study, AMR is now the leading cause of death worldwide. For example, antimicrobial resistance killed more people with HIV or malaria in 2019.
West Africa in sub-Saharan Africa has the highest mortality rate in the study. In contrast, the region, which includes Australia and New Zealand, has the fewest deaths.
Fighting the resistance will take work
For a study of millions of deaths, not everything was doomed and gloomy. Experts suggested five strategies that could improve the situation.
For example, constant efforts by physicians will be required to avoid prescribing unnecessary antibiotics; agricultural companies must minimize the use of antibiotics in chicken, beef and other animals; and pharmaceutical companies need something worth the time and effort to develop new drugs.
Governments and private organizations will also need to increase funding for research into new antibiotics and another word “V” – vaccines, said researcher Kevin Ikuta, MD, assistant professor of health sciences, clinical professor of medicine at UCLA.
Of the six most disturbing bacteria, only one – pneumococcus – has a vaccine available to prevent infection in the first place.
More vaccines are in the works, but so far people remain vulnerable to the other five main culprits: Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The study reveals that each of these bacteria is responsible for more than 250,000 AMR-related deaths.
Do you prefer to narrow down your concerns to the most endangered pair resistant to antibiotics and bacteria from the 88 combinations studied by researchers? They identified methicillin resistance S. aureus (MRSA) as the one that causes the most deaths from AMR – more than 100,000 deaths in 2019 alone.
How does COVID-19 manifest itself?
In an editorial in The Lancet published at the same time as the study, Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan called antimicrobial resistance a “neglected pandemic.”
“While COVID-19 is raging, the pandemic of antimicrobial resistance continues in the shadows. The damage from AMR to patients and their families is largely invisible, but is reflected in long-term bacterial infections that prolong hospital stays and cause unnecessary deaths, wrote Laxminarayan, an economist and epidemiologist at the Geneva-based Global Partnership for Antibiotics Research and Development. , Switzerland.
There is a direct link between COVID-19 and AMR, Dr. Vance Fowler said when asked to comment on the study. When someone with COVID-19 is hospitalized for a long time, for example, they are more likely to develop a resistant bacterial infection.
Experts call this “super infections”.
The lancet The report is likely to draw more attention to AMR, especially since so many people have been distracted by COVID and rightly so. The world has its hands full with COVID, “said Fowler, a professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina.
AMR-related deaths show there is still work to be done to control and prevent infections, he said. Tracking hotspots around the world will allow resources to be better targeted.
Asked if there was any reason for hope or optimism at the moment, Ikuta said: “Definitely. We know what needs to be done to combat the spread of resistance. COVID-19 demonstrates the importance of a global commitment to infection control measures, such as hand washing and surveillance, as well as rapid investment in treatments that can be applied to antimicrobial resistance. “
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