The “superbugs” they are beating modern medicine: we are no longer able to cure once trivial infections

Drug resistance kills more than HIV, malaria and tuberculosis combined. The study in Lancet

ROME – They call them “superbugs”. And every year “they kill more people than HIV, malaria and tuberculosis combined”, says Professor Ramanan Laxminarayan of Princeton University, in the United States. A terribly underestimated global alarm: antimicrobial resistance, with the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria, has set us back in medical progress. Once trivial infections are now proving fatal, and crucial procedures in modern medicine – from caesarean sections to cancer treatments and organ transplants. – they’re becoming too much risky.

According to 2019 data, approximately 4.95 million deaths are associated with bacterial antimicrobial resistance, 1.27 million directly caused by this resistance caused mainly by the inappropriate and excessive use of antibiotics. The prospect is a future in which modern medicine fails.

In Africa especially, experts calculate, every year 750,000 deaths linked to drug-resistant superbugs could be prevented with better access to clean water and sanitation, infection control and childhood vaccinations.

“People show symptoms… they can’t distinguish whether it’s a virus or bacteria and, to be safe, they take antibiotics. And so they create drug resistance,” says Laxminarayan, pointing out that influenza has been the main driver of antibiotic consumption in the world.

The study, published in the Lancet, is part of a series on antimicrobial resistance which includes the proposal of global objectives called “10-20-30 by 2030”. These refer to a 10% reduction in mortality due to antimicrobial resistance compared to 2019, a 20% reduction in inappropriate antibiotic use in humans and a 30% reduction in inappropriate antibiotic use in animals.