These have been increasing in number for quite a few years.
Perhaps we should use common sense and outlaw the use of antibiotics in animals.
Drug-resistant bacteria pose potential catastrophe, CDC warns
The nation faces “potentially catastrophic consequences” if it doesn’t act quickly to combat the growing threat of antibiotic resistance, which kills an estimated 23,000 Americans each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Monday.
In a 114-page report, the agency detailed for the first time nearly two dozen antibiotic-resistant bacteria that are causing the most harm to humans — ranking the threat of each as “urgent,” “serious” or “concerning.” Should the trend continue unabated, some infections could become essentially untreatable.
“If we’re not careful, the medicine chest will be empty when we go there to look for a life-saving antibiotic,” CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden told reporters Monday in a telephone news conference. “Without urgent action now, more patients will be thrust back to a time before we had effective drugs.”
One bacteria atop the agency’s “urgent” list of infections is carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), which typically strike patients in medical facilities and has become resistant to nearly all existing antibiotics. Known as the “nightmare bacteria,” CRE causes life-threatening diarrhea. It has continued to proliferate and has been confirmed in medical facilities in nearly every state.
Likewise, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which causes the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea, has begun showing resistance to the antibiotics typically used to treat it, the CDC said. The condition, which can cause severe reproductive complications, shows up in an estimated 800,000 cases annually in the United States.
Clostridium difficile, or C. difficile, infections, which cause about 14,000 deaths per year, also made the agency’s urgent list Monday. While resistance to the antibiotics used to treat C. difficile infections hasn’t yet become a problem, the agency said the bacteria spreads rapidly because it is naturally resistant to many drugs that are used to treat other infections.
The CDC estimates that more than 2 million people in the United States are sickened each year by antibiotic-resistant infections, with 23,000 dying as a result. The agency said Monday that those numbers are conservative estimates and that the true figures likely are even greater.
The report said such infections also lengthen hospital stays and require more extensive treatment, adding “considerable and avoidable” costs to the nation’s already overburdened health-care system.
The overuse of antibiotics is the strongest factor contributing to antibiotic resistance around the globe. The more a particular germ is exposed to antibiotics, the more rapidly it can develop resistance.
Perhaps we should use common sense and outlaw the use of antibiotics in animals.
Drug-resistant bacteria pose potential catastrophe, CDC warns
The nation faces “potentially catastrophic consequences” if it doesn’t act quickly to combat the growing threat of antibiotic resistance, which kills an estimated 23,000 Americans each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Monday.
In a 114-page report, the agency detailed for the first time nearly two dozen antibiotic-resistant bacteria that are causing the most harm to humans — ranking the threat of each as “urgent,” “serious” or “concerning.” Should the trend continue unabated, some infections could become essentially untreatable.
“If we’re not careful, the medicine chest will be empty when we go there to look for a life-saving antibiotic,” CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden told reporters Monday in a telephone news conference. “Without urgent action now, more patients will be thrust back to a time before we had effective drugs.”
One bacteria atop the agency’s “urgent” list of infections is carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), which typically strike patients in medical facilities and has become resistant to nearly all existing antibiotics. Known as the “nightmare bacteria,” CRE causes life-threatening diarrhea. It has continued to proliferate and has been confirmed in medical facilities in nearly every state.
Likewise, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which causes the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea, has begun showing resistance to the antibiotics typically used to treat it, the CDC said. The condition, which can cause severe reproductive complications, shows up in an estimated 800,000 cases annually in the United States.
Clostridium difficile, or C. difficile, infections, which cause about 14,000 deaths per year, also made the agency’s urgent list Monday. While resistance to the antibiotics used to treat C. difficile infections hasn’t yet become a problem, the agency said the bacteria spreads rapidly because it is naturally resistant to many drugs that are used to treat other infections.
The CDC estimates that more than 2 million people in the United States are sickened each year by antibiotic-resistant infections, with 23,000 dying as a result. The agency said Monday that those numbers are conservative estimates and that the true figures likely are even greater.
The report said such infections also lengthen hospital stays and require more extensive treatment, adding “considerable and avoidable” costs to the nation’s already overburdened health-care system.
The overuse of antibiotics is the strongest factor contributing to antibiotic resistance around the globe. The more a particular germ is exposed to antibiotics, the more rapidly it can develop resistance.
