Three Million Child Deaths Linked To Drug Resistance, Study Shows (bbc.co.uk) 36
"More than three million children around the world are thought to have died in 2022 as a result of infections that are resistant to antibiotics," reports the BBC, citing a study by two leading experts in child health that used data from sources including the World Health Organization and the World Bank:
Experts say this new study highlights a more than tenfold increase in AMR-related infections in children in just three years. The number could have been made worse by the impact of the Covid pandemic...
The report's lead authors, Doctor Yanhong Jessika Hu of Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Australia and Professor Herb Harwell of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, point to a significant growth in the use of antibiotics that are meant to only be held back for the most serious infections. Between 2019 and 2021 the use of "watch antibiotics", drugs with a high risk of resistance, increased by 160% in South East Asia and 126% in Africa. Over the same period, "reserve antibiotics" — last-resort treatments for severe, multidrug-resistant infections — rose by 45% in South East Asia and 125% in Africa.
The authors warn that if bacteria develop resistance to these antibiotics, there will be few, if any, alternatives for treating multidrug-resistant infections.
"Antibiotics are ubiquitous around us," Professor Harwell warns in the article. "They end up in our food and the environment and so coming up with a single solution is not easy." The article also quotes a senior lecturer in microbiology at King's College London, who says the new study "marks a significant and alarming increase compared to previous data".
"These findings should serve as a wake-up call for global health leaders. Without decisive action, AMR could undermine decades of progress in child health, particularly in the world's most vulnerable regions."
Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the article.
The report's lead authors, Doctor Yanhong Jessika Hu of Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Australia and Professor Herb Harwell of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, point to a significant growth in the use of antibiotics that are meant to only be held back for the most serious infections. Between 2019 and 2021 the use of "watch antibiotics", drugs with a high risk of resistance, increased by 160% in South East Asia and 126% in Africa. Over the same period, "reserve antibiotics" — last-resort treatments for severe, multidrug-resistant infections — rose by 45% in South East Asia and 125% in Africa.
The authors warn that if bacteria develop resistance to these antibiotics, there will be few, if any, alternatives for treating multidrug-resistant infections.
"Antibiotics are ubiquitous around us," Professor Harwell warns in the article. "They end up in our food and the environment and so coming up with a single solution is not easy." The article also quotes a senior lecturer in microbiology at King's College London, who says the new study "marks a significant and alarming increase compared to previous data".
"These findings should serve as a wake-up call for global health leaders. Without decisive action, AMR could undermine decades of progress in child health, particularly in the world's most vulnerable regions."
Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the article.
Phage Therapy is an answer to drug resistance (Score:4, Interesting)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ..."
"Phage therapy, viral phage therapy, or phagotherapy is the therapeutic use of bacteriophages for the treatment of pathogenic bacterial infections. This therapeutic approach emerged at the beginning of the 20th century but was progressively replaced by the use of antibiotics in most parts of the world after the Second World War. Bacteriophages, known as phages, are a form of virus[4] that attach to bacterial cells and inject their genome into the cell. The bacteria's production of the viral genome interferes with its ability to function, halting the bacterial infection. The bacterial cell causing the infection is unable to reproduce and instead produces additional phages. Phages are very selective in the strains of bacteria they are effective against.
Re: (Score:3)
Phage resistance occurs too, it's no superior to antibiotics. A phage may be looked at as simply another class of antibiotic.
Advancing Phage Therapy: A Comprehensive Review... (Score:3)
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/a... [nih.gov]
"Background: Phage therapy, a treatment utilizing bacteriophages to combat bacterial infections, is gaining attention as a promising alternative to antibiotics, particularly for managing antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This study aims to provide a comprehensive review of phage therapy by examining its safety, efficacy, influencing factors, future prospects, and regulatory considerations. The study also seeks to identify strategies for optimizing its application and to propose
Advocating for phage therapy (Nature) (Score:2)
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
"Bacteriophages (phages) are the most abundant organisms in the biosphere and are viruses that specifically target bacteria. Following the discovery of phages in 1915, researchers and clinicians quickly realized the potential to co-opt their biology and use them as therapeutic agents to treat bacterial infections. However, the discovery and subsequent use of antibiotics between the 1930s and 1960s meant that phage therapy was largely abandoned by most countries as antibiotic
Re: (Score:2)
Phage resistance is a thing too. So no.
Agriculture partly to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Declare large scale use of reserve antibiotic use in agriculture a crime against humanity, with jurisdiction in the international criminal court.
Reserving it for serious cases in humans and then mixing it in feed by the bucket load is not going to work.
Re:Agriculture partly to blame (Score:4, Interesting)
International criminal court, sounds like something Trump would respect. Not that the US respects it anyway.
Laws for thee, not for me.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Agriculture partly to blame (Score:4, Informative)
No reserve antibiotics in agricultures, no exception. That's the control I'm looking for. If you allow it "selectively" the scale of use will still completely dwarf human medicine.
From first hit on google for, "reserve antibiotics" animal agriculture.
"Reserve antibiotics with the highest priority for human medicine (Highest Priority Critically
Important Antimicrobials for Human Medicine, HPCIA), which are also approved for animals,
comprise five classes of active substances: Polypeptides (colistin), fluoroquinolones, 3rd and
4th generation cephalosporins and macrolides. Colistin is mainly used orally in calves, poultry
and pigs, while 3rd + 4th generation cepahalosporins are approved as injection preparations
and mastitis preparations. The fluoroquinolones are used orally and as injectables in pigs
and cattle frequently for diarrhea and respiratory infections. The macrolides are used as
injectables and orally mainly for respiratory infections."
Stop it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Agriculture partly to blame (Score:4, Interesting)
EU ban is only as growth promoter, for everything else it's yada yada animal welfare yada yada. The problem is that nothing is ever case by case in animal farming because everything happens at mass scale with trivial disease transmission.
To buy us some time, they need to just take them away from animal agriculture entirely.
Re: (Score:1)
What is better for overpopulated 3rd world countries - disease or famine? Choose wisely.
Not every nation has the same standards on meds (Score:1)
I remember my brother talking about a vacation to Peru. He caught a pretty bad cold or something and so went looking for something to relieve his symptoms. He said antibiotics were available over the counter there. I don't recall if he said he took them but there did not appear to be any need for a prescription to get them.
Even in the USA I can see how problems of this could grow. Many years ago I saw a physician for something that I now vaguely remember. I was prescribed an antibiotic I had not heard
Re: (Score:2)
you realize the common cold is caused by a virus, right? Antibiotics are not prescribed for viruses.
Feel free to rant away, but not knowing such basic things isn't making your opinion respectable.
Re: (Score:2)
What you mean is "Antibiotics should not be prescribed for a virus.". I've often heard that they commonly *are* prescribed...though usually because the patient insists.
That said, not all colds are viruses. For me most "colds" are allergies. (Again, no reason for an antibiotic...but not because it's a virus.)
Re: (Score:2)
He didn't say that his brother took antibiotics for the apparent cold, just that he noted that he could get antibiotics over the counter there after visiting a pharmacy to get something for the cold.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I was prescribed an antibiotic I had not heard of before. It turned out after a bit of investigation that it was a combination of antibiotics, a mix of medications...
Had I known what I was being prescribed at the time I would have spoke up to the physician and asked for the cheaper, likely just as effective, amoxicillin instead. ... it would not be encouraging antibiotic resistance in the community.
I'm not up to speed on the state of the art, but my understanding is that you've got it backwards. Yes, if you don't take a fancy antibiotic you can't cause resistance to that fancy antibiotic. But if you only take amoxicillin you may develop an infection that's resistant to amoxicillin. But if you take the right cocktail of antibiotics, it's highly unlikely that that resistance to any of them will arise, since they act synergistically and the bacteria will be killed.
Though I'm not familiar with how wastewa
3 million due to drug resistance (Score:4, Funny)
doesn't sound right (Score:5, Interesting)
That rate normalized to the US population would be about 95K deaths per year. The US experiences about 20K total child deaths per year, so this ONE cause worldwide is 4 times the total death rate of ALL causes in the US. That seems remarkably suspicious considering it's such a specific cause that ideally should be zero. How many of those deaths were a result of failed antibiotics directly?
I have no doubt this is a serious issue, but I don't believe this number. Note the claim "as a result of infections that are resistant to antibiotics", sure but many of those may not be BECAUSE of the resistance. They didn't get the infection because of the resistance and they may have died regardless. It is yet another example of dressing up the numbers to suit a narrative.
Not sure this a great topic in the current political climate worldwide either. For certain political leaders, child deaths in shithole countries is good news.
Re:doesn't sound right (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would you expect the death rate in the US to be representative of the global rate? We're not typical in any way.
Not a problem (Score:1)
Just give them doses of Vitamin A. That will fix everything [go.com]. Of course, as the article relates, if these people didn't have such poor diets they would be immune to everything. Too bad USAID and other programs which distribute food to people have been gutted.
McMaster researchers discover new class of anti... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, a couple weeks or so back they were talking about a new antibiotic molecule that kills drug-resistant bacteria.
https://healthsci.mcmaster.ca/... [mcmaster.ca]
You can buy any antibiotic (Score:1)
Not the fault of US doctors or ag (Score:2)
It's also worth noting that people with suppressed immune systems also take some of the most powerful antibiotics most of their lives.
Re:Not the fault of US doctors or ag (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worse than that:
https://www.foodnavigator-asia... [foodnavigator-asia.com]
A few people buying antibiotics at the pharmacy is nothing compared to big farms pumping the stuff into their cattle nonstop.
Three million among over eight billion... (Score:2)
Three million among over eight billion is background noise, but should be contained to keep it that way.
Remember all life dies of something so it would be far more surprising if this sort of thing did not happen but humans are bad at counting.
Biological football (Score:2)