Antimicrobial Resistance is a Leading Cause of Death Globally
upstart writes:
Antimicrobial resistance is a leading cause of death globally:
Bacterial infections that don't respond to treatment are a leading cause of death around the world.
In 2019, antimicrobial resistance caused an estimated 1.27 million deaths, researchers report January 19 in the Lancet. More people died from untreatable bacterial infections that year than from HIV or malaria.
Overall, bacterial antimicrobial resistance played a role in an estimated 4.95 million deaths globally, including the 1.27 million directly caused by resistant infections, the study found. The estimates are based on an analysis of hospital, surveillance and other sources of data covering 204 countries and territories by an international group of researchers called the Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborators.
Resistance to two classes of antibiotics, beta-lactams (which include penicillin) and fluoroquinolones, was behind more than 70 percent of resistance-caused deaths. Those drugs are the first-line options for many bacterial infections (SN: 4/30/14).
Among the bacteria responsible for fatal drug-resistant infections, the top three were Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus, the researchers found. These pathogens can cause dangerous infections in health care settings in people with weakened immune systems.
Journal Reference:
Christopher J L Murray, Kevin Shunji Ikuta, Fablina Sharara, et al. Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 2019: a systematic analysis, The Lancet (DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02724-0)
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