Deaths Linked to Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs Rose 17% in England in 2024 (theguardian.com) 49
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Guardian:
The number of deaths linked to superbugs that do not respond to frontline antibiotics increased by 17% in England last year, according to official figures that raise concerns about the ongoing increase in antimicrobial resistance.
The figures, released by the UK Health Security Agency, also revealed a large rise in private prescriptions for antibiotics, with 22% dispensed through the private sector in 2024. The increase in private prescribing is partly explained by the Pharmacy First scheme, a flagship policy of Rishi Sunak's government that allows patients to be prescribed antibiotics for common illnesses without seeing a GP, raising questions about whether the shift in prescribing patterns risks contributing to the rise in resistance.
"Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest health threats we face," said the UKHSA's chief executive, Prof Susan Hopkins. "More people than ever are acquiring infections that cannot be effectively treated by antibiotics. This puts them at greater risk of serious illness and even death, with our poorest communities hit the hardest... It's positive that we've seen antibiotic use fall in England within the NHS but we need to go further, faster," said Hopkins.
"Please remember to only take antibiotics if you have been told to do so by a healthcare professional. Do not save some for later or share them with friends and family. If you have leftover antibiotics, please bring them to a pharmacy for appropriate disposal."
The figures, released by the UK Health Security Agency, also revealed a large rise in private prescriptions for antibiotics, with 22% dispensed through the private sector in 2024. The increase in private prescribing is partly explained by the Pharmacy First scheme, a flagship policy of Rishi Sunak's government that allows patients to be prescribed antibiotics for common illnesses without seeing a GP, raising questions about whether the shift in prescribing patterns risks contributing to the rise in resistance.
"Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest health threats we face," said the UKHSA's chief executive, Prof Susan Hopkins. "More people than ever are acquiring infections that cannot be effectively treated by antibiotics. This puts them at greater risk of serious illness and even death, with our poorest communities hit the hardest... It's positive that we've seen antibiotic use fall in England within the NHS but we need to go further, faster," said Hopkins.
"Please remember to only take antibiotics if you have been told to do so by a healthcare professional. Do not save some for later or share them with friends and family. If you have leftover antibiotics, please bring them to a pharmacy for appropriate disposal."
Need a prescription. (Score:5, Insightful)
It should be illegal to get the majority of them without a prescription.
The most important practice we need to stop is giving it to livestock as a way to increase growth. If the animal has not been examined by a veterinary and given a prescription, it should be illegal to feed it an antibiotic. Currently it is possible to buy tons of food with antibiotics installed.
Also, this means those hand soaps with antibiotics, we need to outlaw them. Alcohol gels do a BETTER job of killing the bacteria and the antibiotics just breed resistance.
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Doctors who prescribe antibiotics to complaining patients who don't have symptoms consistent with a bacterial infection should be investigated, and if it's a consistent behaviour they should lose their licenses.
Vets and wholesalers who supply farmers should be shut right down.
It really ought to be a criminal offense. Overuse of antibiotics is an unnecessary risk to all our lives.
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Nonsense.
70 percent of the volume of antibiotics used in animals are ionophores and tetracyclines. Ionophores arenâ(TM)t used in humans at all, and tetracyclines have 4 percent human usage rate.
73 percent of the antibiotics used in humans are from 3 classes and have only 10 percent use rate in farm animals: penicillin, cephalosporin and sulfa.
The CDC has identified the biggest threats from antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and zero of those are related to farm animals. On CDC list with less urgent threa
Re:Need a prescription. (Score:5, Informative)
tetracyclines have 4 percent human usage rate.
It's not about the percentage, it's that when we need them, they should work. Wikipedia: “Tetracyclines remain the treatment of choice for infections caused by chlamydia, Rickettsia, brucellosis and spirochetal infections” Maybe these infections only account for 4% of what we need to treat. It still would it be a pity if we suddenly stopped having the treatment of choice for all of those, and that includes typhus, the bubonic plague, Lyme disease.
Also: why we don't use tetracyclines that much anymore: “their use for these indications is less popular than it once was due to widespread development of resistance in the causative organisms.[6][7]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The whole conversation is we need to use less of them in cases they are less needed (e.g. the large scale use in veterinary) so we avoid creating resistance in bacteria that also attack us.
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Rickettsial still gets destroyed by normal tetracyclines.
Brucellosis is treated by rifampicin not a tretracycline. Any superbugs,, and yes there are some, are the fault of something else than farming. Is your information super dated?
spirochetal infections have the preferred treatments of doxycycline yes but also there are alternatives like colistin, penicillin, or ceftriaxone.
Good ol' chlamydia, on the decline now for two years, no superbugs yet but it's being watched.
The whole conversation is not to lo
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I had treatment for Lyme disease in spring 2022, Doxyhexal - described as "a broad-spectrum tetracycline-class antibiotic". It was fairly effective, the symptoms faded and a blood test several weeks later showed that the offending bacteria were in retreat. Since a friend of mine had needed four courses of antibiotics before his Lyme was actually fixed, I asked them to check those values the next time I needed a blood test (maybe a year later). I'm back, baby.
The 2023 treatment was some other antibiotic b
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Medical authorities like to talk about agricultural use and people taking them for colds, because that keeps people looking away from the actual main source of multi-drug-resistant bacteria: hospitals.
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also people popping them like candy and doctors enabling it, even for viral diseases without test for bacterial or fungal infection.
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"Vets and wholesalers who supply farmers should be shut right down."
Yes, but... if you do this expect the price of meat to go way up, especially chicken and eggs. Perhaps it's a price we need to pay, but expect that it would need to be paid.
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I haven't yet looked into why our beef and chicken prices have gone up anyway. At least during COVID they had issues with workers and transport... what's the excuse now? Hell, milk in my area has gone up maybe 20% in the last year or two. That's ridiculous. It's not like all the dairy cows are gone, and we've always had a slight excess of supply.
Prices going up (Score:3)
Immediately after covid, the main reason for the inflation was the covid checks. During covid their tax revenue went down but their spending doubled. How? The was the government printing money.
When you print money, you create massive inflation. It took a while for the economy to react, but it definitely did.
What happened next is called inelastic supply and demand curves. What that means is that prices take a shock to change. For a long time we had cheap food in part because no one would pay extra. T
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That's a different problem, and I can't speak to it. But chickens could not be raised as they are without LOTS of antibiotics. (I happen to think the way they are raised is an abomination, but it's cheap.)
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if you do this expect the price of meat to go way up,
Use of of veterinary antibiotics has been on the decline for the past decade already. We can continue. Besides, the decline has been faster in Europe than in the USA ("US lagging Europe in efforts to cut antibiotics in livestock" https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/ant... [umn.edu] ), and we have not gotten news that the price of meat/egg prices have diverged in this direction between the two blocs.
Re: Need a prescription. (Score:2)
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Re:Need a prescription. (Score:5, Interesting)
A few things to note...
Over the past couple of decades, more and more roles within the British healthcare system have become able to prescribe - pharmacists (as noted in the summary), nurse prescribers, physicians associates (who technically should be under the supervision of a GP, but the way the NHS has that set up its very much a "PA prescribes, GP actually has little say")...
The role of doctors in the British healthcare system is being deminished and replaced by lower paid, lower trained positions, and GPs are particularly hard hit by it - which is why GPs are retiring or moving overseas at record rates, far beyond the ability for the current GP training schemes to replace them.
The UK is actively doctor hostile these days, and British doctors do not want to be part of it any more.
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The role of doctors in the British healthcare system is being deminished and replaced by lower paid, lower trained positions, and GPs are particularly hard hit by it - which is why GPs are retiring or moving overseas at record rates, far beyond the ability for the current GP training schemes to replace them.
I don't think they're leaving because they feel like they're being replaced. I think that they're leaving because despite these measures to reduce their workload they still feel like they're overworked and underpaid. It's not a new phenomenon, or even restricted to doctors. Professionals moving from Britain to Australia for better pay and better weather has been happening for years. The last time I remember it being in the news was when it was construction workers: brickies, plumbers, and sparks, etc.
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My wife is one of those who left.
Yes, a lot of it is to do with the over worked and under paid, but not all of it - a lot of it is also due to the unbelievable stress of the responsibility heaped on you as a doctor, coupled with the diminishing respect for being a doctor by pretty much everyone.
For example, GPs being told that they have to open in the evenings and weekends, despite not having enough staff to run a 9-5 Monday to Friday service already - and your budget is being taken by the pharmacists who a
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A few things to note...
Over the past couple of decades, more and more roles within the British healthcare system have become able to prescribe - pharmacists (as noted in the summary), nurse prescribers, physicians associates (who technically should be under the supervision of a GP, but the way the NHS has that set up its very much a "PA prescribes, GP actually has little say")...
The role of doctors in the British healthcare system is being diminished and replaced by lower paid, lower trained positions, and GPs are particularly hard hit by it - which is why GPs are retiring or moving overseas at record rates, far beyond the ability for the current GP training schemes to replace them.
The UK is actively doctor hostile these days, and British doctors do not want to be part of it any more.
It's not just in Britain. All across the West, there's a shortage of native-born doctors. The expense and hassle of getting an MD is bad enough. Then you also have the modern stresses of being an MD (which in America, includes a highly litigious culture where doctors have to get maddeningly expensive malpractice insurance). The workload is huge, and the money is only good for the hyper-specialists now. The home-grown family doctor is an endangered species in the US, and we're addressing it in two ways: han
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In the UK the shortage of British born doctors, dentists etc. is entirely down to a deliberate decision by the UK government to restrict the number of places at University to less than we require. To the point where British-born children are going to Bulgaria to train because they cannot get a place at a University in the UK.
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As the other poster says, the reason for the shortage is because successive British governments have cut funding in the NHS in real terms, and are now flailing around as those cuts have really started to bite.
And every time the doctors or nurses strike to make a point, they get gaslit because "think of the patients".
Healthcare systems run on two things - staff, and good will.
The government has reduced the staff well below minimum, and burned up all the good will, so now theres nothing left. Fewer doctors a
Re:Need a prescription. (Score:5, Interesting)
It should be illegal to get the majority of them without a prescription.
It is. It's also illegal to advertise prescription medicines. Sunak may have been pretty useless (someone needed to show him how to use contactless payment FFS), but being the child of two pharmacists seems to have paid off. Allowing pharmacists to prescribe medicines for a very small number of illnesses takes a little pressure off GPs. By "very small" I mean about half a dozen. Strep throat is one of them I think.
The most important practice we need to stop is giving it to livestock as a way to increase growth. If the animal has not been examined by a veterinary and given a prescription, it should be illegal to feed it an antibiotic. Currently it is possible to buy tons of food with antibiotics installed.
We don't feed animals with antibiotics in the UK, and you can't just buy them from a farm store without a prescription.
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You are doing better inthe UK (as of 22024) then the US. Here it is still legal to feed antibiotics to animals.
But you can still buy antibacterial soap in both the UK and the US
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Antibacterial soap doesn't contain antibiotics... At least, it never has in any country I've lived in.
Their properties are supposed to be chemical in nature, not medication based - the fact that they haven't exactly stood up to scrutiny isnt surprising, but they arent adding to the current antibiotic-resistent problem...
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You're talking like the UK is an Island. It's not. The problem isn't the way livestock are fed in the UK, it's the way they are fed *in the world*.
Allowing pharmacists to prescribe medicines for a very small number of illnesses takes a little pressure off GPs. By "very small" I mean about half a dozen. Strep throat is one of them I think.
We should not be taking the pressure of GPs, we should be ensuring we have enough qualified GPs to correctly diagnose cases and manage their workload. There's a good reason it is illegal for pharmacists to perform diagnosis in many countries. They are limited to providing non-prescription medication to address common complaints, or for filling prescriptions. Givi
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One thing you could do is single-payer healthcare especially in america. Back when I used to work really shitty call center jobs I need people that would take their antibiotics until they felt better and stop because they were saving them for the next time. That was because they couldn't afford to see a doctor.
There's an old saying, it's cheaper to be a good person.
Re: Need a prescription. (Score:2)
Soap itself does a good enough job of killing not just bacteria, but any kind of germs really. No need even for alcohol.
Re:Need a prescription. (Score:4, Informative)
"Also, this means those hand soaps with antibiotics"
Are you confusing antibiotics with antiseptics? Few people eat hand soap. There is a triple antibiotic ointment (Neosporin) but it is not a hand soap.
There are a number of antiseptic soaps that offer no advantage over regular soap, but those are not antibiotics.
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Also, this means those hand soaps with antibiotics, we need to outlaw them.
Handsoaps do not contain antibiotics. "Antibiotic" and "Antibacterial" are not the same. Antibacterial soaps are classed as antiseptics which is something very VERY different, and not something that bacteria can build up resistance to (and in some cases of questionable efficacy). Antibiotics work on a biological level (interacting with enzymes, proteins, to either kill or prevent the spread of bacteria), where as antibacterial (antiseptics) actively destroy cell walls in some cases quite indiscriminately. T
17% (Score:2)
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Sepsis deaths are on the rise too (Score:2)
Common factors like caffeine also can cause antibiotic resistance to develop.
There is still a lot of work to be done around this topic. Knee-jerk reactions like limiting antibiotics are not going to help
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Sure, but on the flip side people are dying of sepsis from common infections too.
Because they're being infected by antibiotic-resistant strains!
Common factors like caffeine also can cause antibiotic resistance to develop.
Are you seriously suggesting that caffeine causes antibiotic resistance in bacteria? Really?!
There is still a lot of work to be done around this topic. Knee-jerk reactions like limiting antibiotics are not going to help
Literally no-one is suggesting that access to antibiotics should be reduced. They absolutely should be limited to cases where they will help. There isn't really an issue with overuse of antibiotics in the UK, since you can only get them with a prescription. The problem we do have is that people a) don't take the full course, and b) are keeping what the
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Common factors like caffeine also can cause antibiotic resistance to develop.
Extraordinary outlandish claims require extraordinary evidence.
Knee-jerk reactions like limiting antibiotics are not going to help
There's nothing knee-jerk about this. The mechanism of developing of resistance due to over prescription of antibiotics has been studied, causally identified, and the effect of limiting antibiotics is a clear and obvious solution to this mechanism.
If another mechanism exists (LOL caffeine, really?) that isn't remotely a reason not to limit this mechanism as well. You don't go up to someone say, "oh you have a broken thumb, so you won't have a pr
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Might not be linked to antibiotic use (Score:2)
... at least not in the UK.
https://annalsofglobalhealth.o... [annalsofglobalhealth.org]
Outstanding! (Score:1)
We got our "peak oil" anxiety dose yesterday [slashdot.org], and now we gotten the expected end-of-antibiotics scare. All that's left is to dust off the doomsday clock people: there still a few hours left to complete the trifecta!
Can't imagine it'd be all that difficult: Trump is somehow president again, so there's every reason to crank the 'ol doomsday clock forward a bit and make a headline.
What we need is Evangelical Christianity (Score:2)
They know how to put a stop to all this evolution nonsense. If they would just get on the ball.....maybe use a few prayer seances....they could prevent evolution from happening. And they'd be so happy they'd Rapture themselves and ascend to.....errrr.....well wherever it is they ascend to. And the rest of us could all be happy for them.
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Wait, but I thought everything happens for a reason, and god works on a mysterious waze.
correlation (Score:2)
How does that increase correlate with the number of illegal immigrants from shithole countries?
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