(E. coli is the most dangerous resistant pathogen. / Wikimedia Commons )
Bacterial resistance to antibiotics was the third leading cause of death worldwide in 2019, after coronary heart disease and stroke.
According to a meta-analysis of data from 204 countries, about five million people died from causes directly or indirectly related to resistance.
The researchers said Escherichia coli was the most dangerous resistant pathogen.
Almost a hundred years have passed since the discovery of the first antibiotic - during this time they managed to save many people from deadly bacterial diseases such as syphilis, pneumonia, gangrene and ulcers.
However, along with the development of antibiotics, bacteria began to evolve: the microorganisms acquired drug resistance genes.
Thus, diseases that could easily be cured with a course of antibiotics have again become a serious threat to life.
However, data on mortality rates due to bacterial resistance reach us only in fragments: for individual cities and countries, for a limited period of time, or only for a specific microorganism.
The Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborators led by Mohsen Naghavi conducted a meta-analysis of 2019 deaths from 23 pathogens in 204 countries.
The scientists drew data from scientific surveys, hospitals, surveillance agencies, and other sources, spanning more than four hundred million records.
This information was used to build predictive models that were used to assess the impact of antibiotic resistance on countries.
It is estimated that around 4.95 million people died worldwide in 2019 from a resistant infection.
Of these, about 1.27 million deaths were directly caused by resistance.
Most often, people died from such infections in sub-Saharan Africa: about 27 out of 100,000 deaths per year.
The most common causes of death were infections of the respiratory tract, blood and abdominal cavities.
At the same time, most of the infections were caused by only 6 resistant bacteria:
- E. coli,
- Staphylococcus aureus,
- Klebsiella pneumoniae,
- pneumococcus,
- Bauman's Acinetobacterium and
- Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
The researchers compared their estimates with existing data on causes of death and ranked antibiotic resistance third, after coronary heart disease and stroke.
So, this reason managed to bypass even HIV and malaria.
In the article, scientists propose several ways to combat resistance:
- prevent the spread of infections in hospitals,
- implement water sanitation and vaccination,
- limit the use of antibiotics on farms, do not use antibiotics in the treatment of viral infections, and
- invest in the development of new antibiotics and the supply of second-line antibiotics.
Source:
- Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02724-0/fulltext