More than a hundred public health specialists from around the world met this week in Buenos Aires for a medical event dedicated to analyzing a particularly risky situation: the misuse of antibiotics is “increasing” bacterial resistance to these molecules. So many of the basic medicines prescribed daily by doctors to cure infections are literally no longer effective.
This situation has reached such a point that, according to the WHO, “resistant” bacterial infections are already directly responsible for 1.3 million deaths per year and are associated with another 5 million deaths related to this problem. These numbers are very high if one considers that they already involve more deaths than those caused annually by HIV, tuberculosis and malaria combined.
The problem was discussed during the 4th Meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) Network of Collaborating Centers for Surveillance and Evaluation of Antimicrobial Resistance, which was held this week in Buenos Aires and brought together delegates from all over the world. During the final press conference, in which PROFILE participated, Kitty van Weezenbeek – WHO director of Surveillance, Prevention and Control of Antimicrobial Resistance – explained that “the problem is that we already have solid evidence that there is a high level of resistance of different pathogens to so-called ‘first line’ antibiotics. Among the most common infections in which ‘resistant’ bacteria are found are urinary infections and blood infections”. Another example that describes these situations is that of bacteremia and urinary tract infections caused by the “popular” Escherichia coli bacterium. Various global studies have verified that these already have levels of resistance to the most widely used antimicrobials that vary between 10% and 20%, so the risk of therapeutic “failure” is very high.
What is the reason for this trend? According to experts, the problem is misuse: broad-spectrum antibiotics are frequently prescribed, sometimes at the request of the patients themselves. Or, even, when the infection is of viral origin and these families of drugs have no effect. Also self-medication, since it is an “easy” remedy to obtain in pharmacies, despite the fact that its sale must be made under a prescription. And finally its use in the animal production industry as growth “promoters”.
The problems in the future may worsen since, according to the WHO expert, “the development of a new antibiotic takes 10 to 15 years for the pharmaceutical industry. And, furthermore, a good part of the laboratories that were dedicated to the subject are going through severe financial problems since it is not a medical area that bills ‘as well’ as others”.
The experts emphasized an essential fact: these drugs must be used responsibly because we could develop new innovative antibiotics, but as soon as these drugs come onto the market, the biological race with pathogens will resume again.
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