More people died of superbacteria in 2019 than HIV or malaria, study suggests
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Re: More people died of superbacteria in 2019 than HIV or malaria, study suggests
#2By "superbacteria" I mean "drug-resistant bacteria".
I linked the original study, but I saw it Spanish national media, and then here: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/19/health/bacterial-antimicr...
Re: More people died of superbacteria in 2019 than HIV or malaria, study suggests
#3My hope is that phage therapy can solve the issue of drug-resistant bacteria. Also we really need to get our things together and work against misuse of antibiotics.
Re: More people died of superbacteria in 2019 than HIV or malaria, study suggests
#4All the health agencies in the world know this is a problem, but are there any actual changes being made to prevent the worst-case scenario?
I worry this is the same situation as Covid, where health agencies knew for years hospital capacity was stretched thin, and lo-and-behold, thousands of people die unnecessarily when a new virus arrives because hospital capacity was overwhelmed.
Re: More people died of superbacteria in 2019 than HIV or malaria, study suggests
#5> Our approach can be divided into five broad components: number of deaths where infection played a role, proportion of infectious deaths attributable to a given infectious syndrome, proportion of infectious syndrome deaths attributable to a given pathogen, the percentage of a given pathogen resistant to an antibiotic of interest, and the excess risk of death or duration of an infection associated with this resistance
The headline that you wrote phrases this as "died of superbacteria", does this relate to the number where an infection played a role or the number attributable to a given pathogen?
Re: More people died of superbacteria in 2019 than HIV or malaria, study suggests
#6No post body was provided.
Re: More people died of superbacteria in 2019 than HIV or malaria, study suggests
#7My hope is that phage therapy can solve the issue of drug-resistant bacteria. Also we really need to get our things together and work against misuse of antibiotics.
> Also we really need to get our things together and work against misuse of antibiotics.
Too late for that, we already have the superbugs. Not to say that reducing antibiotic usage in farms is not worth the effort (because it is), but we need to ramp up investment in basic R&D for antibiotics again - there is almost none of that any more since it is extremely cost-intensive and the medications are low-revenue [1].
ETA: Additionally, we could curb human antibiotic usage by making rapid tests for common viral infections more available. Routinely checking for strep throat and the various flu viruses both at-home and in clinical situations could save people a lot of completely unnecessary antibiotics courses - as well as teaching basic life education like "if it's not a bacterial infection behind your sore throat, an antibiotics course won't help at all, it will go away on itself after three to four days".
Lateral flow rapid tests are incredibly cheap to manufacture and (as the last two years have shown) capable of being self-administered - making them account for multiple sorts of antibodies is already done for COVID tests.
Re: More people died of superbacteria in 2019 than HIV or malaria, study suggests
#8My hope is that phage therapy can solve the issue of drug-resistant bacteria. Also we really need to get our things together and work against misuse of antibiotics.
Why a phage therapy is not widespread?
Re: More people died of superbacteria in 2019 than HIV or malaria, study suggests
#9All the health agencies in the world know this is a problem, but are there any actual changes being made to prevent the worst-case scenario? I worry this is the same situation as Covid, where health agencies knew for years hospital capacity was stretched thin, and lo-and-behold, thousands of people die unnecessarily when a new virus arrives because hospital capacity was overwhelmed.
Afaik, one problem is that the health agencies can only do so much. Most antibiotics and antibiotics misuse happens in agriculture where a totally different agency is responsible. Yes, they should foster more research into new drugs, but the main challenge remains prophylactic animal treatment.
Re: More people died of superbacteria in 2019 than HIV or malaria, study suggests
#10By "superbacteria" I mean "drug-resistant bacteria". I linked the original study, but I saw it Spanish national media, and then here: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/19/health/bacterial-antimicr...
The HN guidelines ask submissions not to edit the title except for certain narrow exceptions.
Also, here's a BBC article on the topic: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60058120