Antibiotic resistance, which can lead to minor injuries and common post-operative infections becoming fatal, is no longer a prediction for the future but is happening “right now”, the World Health Organisation has said. Antibiotic resistance, the process whereby bacteria evolve to resist the drugs we use to combat them, “threatens the achievements of modern medicine” and will have “devastating” consequences unless “every country and individual” in the world takes action to prevent its further spread. Antibiotic resistance was happening in “every region of the world and has the potential to affect anyone, of any age, in any country”.
The report warns that an infection with resistant bacteria not only makes the likelihood of death from an infection up to twice as high, but would make infections “harder or impossible to control”, increasing the rate at which the infection spreads, lengthening hospital stays and adding significant economic burdens to already stretched healthcare systems around the world.
In Europe, 25,000 people a year already die from infections which are resistant to drugs of last resort.
Resistance to last resort treatments for life-threatening hospital infections caused by the common bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae has spread to all parts of the world. Resistance to the most widely used drugs for treating urinary tract infections caused by E.coli is also widespread, while last resort drugs to treat gonorrhoea has been confirmed in 10 developed countries, including the UK. Médecins Sans Frontières said that their doctors were seeing “horrendous rates of antibiotic resistance” across all of its fields of operation. Dame Sally Davies, the UK’s chief medical officer said “The soaring number of antibiotic-resistant infections poses such a great threat to society that in 20 years' time we could be taken back to a 19th century environment where everyday infections kill us as a result of routine operations.”
Overuse of antibiotics, both in medicine and in agriculture, is driving the rise of antibiotic resistance by hastening the evolution of resistant strains of bacteria. SOYMB has on a number of occasions posted on this topic and noted that it was reported that research and production of new antibiotics simply doesn’t hold the profit margins for the pharmaceutical industry.
The report warns that an infection with resistant bacteria not only makes the likelihood of death from an infection up to twice as high, but would make infections “harder or impossible to control”, increasing the rate at which the infection spreads, lengthening hospital stays and adding significant economic burdens to already stretched healthcare systems around the world.
In Europe, 25,000 people a year already die from infections which are resistant to drugs of last resort.
Resistance to last resort treatments for life-threatening hospital infections caused by the common bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae has spread to all parts of the world. Resistance to the most widely used drugs for treating urinary tract infections caused by E.coli is also widespread, while last resort drugs to treat gonorrhoea has been confirmed in 10 developed countries, including the UK. Médecins Sans Frontières said that their doctors were seeing “horrendous rates of antibiotic resistance” across all of its fields of operation. Dame Sally Davies, the UK’s chief medical officer said “The soaring number of antibiotic-resistant infections poses such a great threat to society that in 20 years' time we could be taken back to a 19th century environment where everyday infections kill us as a result of routine operations.”
Overuse of antibiotics, both in medicine and in agriculture, is driving the rise of antibiotic resistance by hastening the evolution of resistant strains of bacteria. SOYMB has on a number of occasions posted on this topic and noted that it was reported that research and production of new antibiotics simply doesn’t hold the profit margins for the pharmaceutical industry.
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