Health officials in the United States have warned that infections from dangerous bacteria, which are resistant to some of the strongest antibiotics available, have surged in the country, reports The Washington Post.
In a study published last week, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said infections from NDM-CRE bacteria had risen by more than 460% between 2019 and 2023.
“These infections, including pneumonia, bloodstream infections, urinary tract infections, and wound infections, are extremely hard to treat and can be deadly,” the agency said.
NDM-CRE are part of a group of bacteria known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales, or CRE, which caused around 1 000 deaths in America every year from 2017 to 2019, according to a 2022 CDC report. “NDM” refers to an enzyme that makes the bacteria resistant to nearly all available antibiotics, leaving few treatment options.
The increase in cases posed a serious risk for patients because NDM-CRE can spread quickly and are associated with high rates of mortality, the CDC warned.
“A single case generates alarm among infectious diseases specialists, and we have cause to be deeply concerned about this trajectory,” said Susan Huang, a Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of California at Irvine School of Medicine, who has researched highly antibiotic-resistant organisms.
“Lives will be lost,” she said.
The CDC said it had not determined the exact reasons for the surge in NDM-CRE infections. But gaps in infection control or limited testing – because many clinics do not have the tools to rapidly detect NDM-CRE infections – may have contributed to the bacteria’s spread, it added.
“Delayed identification leads to slower treatment, increased transmission, and missed opportunities for infection control.”
NDM-CRE infections have been historically uncommon in the United States. The NDM gene, which was first identified in 2008 from a Swedish patient who had been hospitalised in New Delhi, creates an enzyme that destroys most antibiotics, including carbapenems, which are usually used in last-ditch efforts to save patients with infections that fail to respond to standard antibiotics, The Washington Post has reported.
Huang said the recent increase in NDM-CRE infections reflects the gradual spread of the bacteria in the US after it was first detected in people who had travelled abroad.
“Over time, with enough importations, it is now … taking hold within the country,” she said.
An increase in antibiotic prescriptions during the first phase of the coronavirus pandemic may have contributed to NDM-CRE’s spread she added. At the time, doctors prescribed “a lot of antibiotics” out of desperation and the false hope that Covid-19 was caused by bacteria, she said. (Antibiotics work against bacteria, not against viruses.)
“Never before had so many antibiotics been prescribed for a viral disease,” she observed, and healthcare providers should also avoid administering unnecessary, “just in case” antibiotics.
From March to October 2020, almost 80% of patients hospitalised with Covid-19 received an antibiotic, according to the CDC.
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