South African scientists are among an international group urging better use of existing tools for preventing the spread of bacteria, saying wider access to vaccines, safe sanitation and better infection control could prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths each year from antibiotic-resistant “superbugs”.
SA data are limited, but there is evidence of extensive and growing antibiotic resistance in some of the most serious infections found in hospital patients, said UCT professor of infectious diseases Marc Mendelson, co-author of a new series in The Lancet.
Speaking at the World Health Assembly, the authors of the series called for urgent global action on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and to ensure sustainable access to antibiotics through various means, including intensifying efforts to promote vaccination, access to safe water and sanitation, and hospital infection control, thereby reducing infections and the use of antibiotics, which protects their long-term effectiveness.
They warned that if the world does not prioritise action on AMR now, there would be a steady increase in the global death toll, with young infants, elderly people, and people with chronic illnesses or requiring surgical procedures at the highest risk.
Annually, about 7.7m people die from bacterial infections, and 4.95m of those are associated with pathogens resistant to available antibiotics, reports BusinessLIVE.
Taking steps to prevent these infections from occurring could save 750 000 lives a year in low and middle income countries, due to the harm caused by antibiotic resistance.
The latest antimicrobial resistance surveillance report from the Department of Health found 70% of bloodstream infections with Klebsiella pneumonia are resistant to a class of antibiotics called cephalosporins, and the proportion of infections that were not susceptible to carbapenems – usually reserved as the last resort treatment – doubled from 18% in 2018 to 36% in 2022.
Concern about the threat of antibiotic resistance is compounded by the sparse pipeline of new therapies in development.
“The biggest bang for our buck in reducing the threat of antimicrobial resistance is actually through the simple infection prevention measures we already have: clean water, safe sanitation, vaccination and preventing infections in hospitals with things like hand-washing,” Mendelson said.
“If we did that, we could reduce deaths by providing people with the services they should be getting. It just requires political will.”
Series co-author Iruka Okeke from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, said that effective antibiotics prolong lives, reduce disabilities, limit healthcare costs and enable other life-saving medical actions like surgery.
“However, antimicrobial resistance is on the rise – accelerated by inappropriate use of antibiotics during the pandemic – threatening the backbone of modern medicine and already leading to deaths and disease, which would have once been prevented.”
The Lancet Series – The scope of the antimicrobial resistance challenge (Open access)
The Lancet Series – Antimicrobial resistance survivors: calling the world to action (Open access)
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Step forward as first study maps out Africa’s superbug threat
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