According to the World Health Organization (WHO), infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria are among the top ten threats to public health worldwide. In 2019, these bacteria, which did not respond to antibiotic treatment, were present in approximately five million deaths and were the direct cause of 1.27 million deaths. Some estimates suggest that this microbial resistance will be the leading cause of death worldwide by 2050, making it imperative to adopt better prevention measures and limit the use of antibiotics to those cases where they are necessary To reduce emergence of new resistances and control their veterinary use and develop new compounds.
It is important to measure the extent of this problem in order to get a handle on it and know how to combat it. This morning, at a meeting of the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC) at the Official Medical College in Madrid, a study carried out by 260 researchers in 130 hospitals that attempts to assess the problem was presented. José Miguel Cisneros, coordinator of the report, highlighted that, according to this work, “23,303 people died in Spain in 2023”. “The number is twenty times higher than the number of people killed in road accidents,” he explained. The data is similar to two previous studies conducted in 2018 and 2019.
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In total, there were more than 150,000 infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The most common infection was urinary tract infection at 42.7%, followed by gastroenteritis at 15.6%. On average, the mortality rate for this type of infection was 15%, rising to 31.3% for pneumonia, which is the most deadly, and for pneumonia of unknown origin, which is less numerous but almost as deadly.
Although age is a risk factor, as with the other diseases, Cisneros emphasizes that “it can happen to anyone.” “There are young people without pre-existing conditions who can be hospitalized due to trauma, become infected and die, in some cases with a risk similar to that before the advent of antibiotics,” he warned.
Almost half of these multidrug-resistant infections were acquired during hospitalization for other reasons. The average age of those infected was 70.8 years and the study authors calculated that these bacteria represent a cumulative loss of 189,535 years of life, with the average life expectancy of those affected estimated at around eight years. Average for each deceased.
To combat the resistance problem, the SEIMC has emphasized the importance of Antibiotic Use Optimization (PROA) programs. These programs are used in both hospital and primary care settings to optimize antibiotic prescribing, improve the prognosis of patients who need them, minimize side effects and control the emergence of resistance. The goal is to reduce consumption by 27%.
In 2016, the United Nations General Assembly signed a Declaration on Coordination of Member States in the Face of a Health Threat for the fourth time in its history. After HIV/AIDS, Ebola and non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer, UN countries reached an agreement to combat antibiotic resistance, seeing it as one of the biggest threats to modern medicine.
Until less than a century ago, a simple infection from these microorganisms, which can now be cured with a week of antibiotics, could be life-threatening. The introduction of these antimicrobials ended that possibility, but bacteria have evolved and adapted to resist drugs. The massive use of antibiotics on farms, globalization and the lack of economic interest in developing new treatment methods have increased the risk of resistant bacteria.
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