According to an analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the spread of drug-resistant infections spiked during the coronavirus pandemic, causing nearly 30,000 deaths in 2020 and greatly increasing recent progress in halting the spread of so-called superbugs .
Federal health officials found that infection deaths from antibiotics and antifungal drugs increased by 15 percent during the first year of the pandemic compared to 2019. Much of the increase was linked to the chaos created by the coronavirus as doctors and nurses struggled to treat waves of critically ill patients, whose illness they did not fully understand, before vaccines and treatments were widely used. were available.
The CDC report found that nearly 40 percent of deaths were among hospitalized patients, with the remainder occurring in nursing homes and other health care settings. According to the study, initially, many frontline hospital workers mistakenly prescribed antibiotics for viral lung infections that did not respond to such drugs. Many of the sickest patients spent weeks or months in intensive care units, making drug-resistant worms more likely to enter their bodies through intravenous lines, catheters and ventilator tubes.
The death toll is likely to be much higher, federal health officials said, because public health laboratories that normally track drug-resistant infections have been swept away during the pandemic, causing significant gaps in data for many of the most dangerous pathogens. It is done.
The CDC said outbreaks of drug-resistant infections across the country were exacerbated by shortages of face masks, gloves and gowns — the vital armor that protects health workers and helps limit the spread of pathogens as they leave the room. Room travel. The report said that due to staffing shortages and the overwhelming number of wards in many hospitals, infection control specialists are often forced to perform basic duties rather than performing their usual duties of promoting the proper use of antibiotics, hand washing and other safety measures. Was reassigned to provide patient care.
“These tremors can and should be temporary,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle P. Valensky said in a statement accompanying the report. “The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear – prevention is preparation. We must prepare our public health systems to fight multiple threats at once.”
Federal officials were particularly concerned about the growing spread of some of the most dangerous pathogens. They found a 78 percent increase in infections with Acinetobacter, a bacteria that is resistant to the antibiotic carbapenem and that often spreads in intensive care patients, and a 60 percent increase in Candida auris, a deadly fungus that often plagues nursing homes and long-term care facilities.
The analysis sheds light on what public health experts have long described as a slow-moving pandemic. More than 700,000 people worldwide die each year from infections that no longer respond to antimicrobial drugs, and health experts warn that by 2050 there is a need to reduce antibiotic overuse and develop new drugs. Without concerted effort the death toll could reach 10 million. ,
Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria and fungi mutate to overcome the drugs they are designed to eliminate. This evolutionary process is inevitable, but the more these drugs are given to people and farm animals, the more likely resistance is to occur.
According to the CDC, about a third of all antibiotics are accidentally prescribed, often for respiratory illnesses such as colds that are caused by viruses. The problem appears to have escalated during the pandemic: Eighty percent of hospitalized Covid patients received antibiotics between March and October 2020, the agency noted.
The CDC’s findings contrast with previous reports that had made slow but steady progress in combating hospital-acquired infections, which kill 35,000 Americans a year and sicken 2.8 million. Between 2012 and 2019, drug-resistant deaths fell by 18 percent, according to the agency’s 2019 report, which found improvements were linked to greater investment in programs to reduce inappropriate use of antibiotics in hospitals.
The most recent report confirmed what many health care workers and public health experts had suspected based on anecdotal reports and some previous studies.
“How bad this has gotten is really alarming,” said David Hyun, director of the antibiotic resistance project at the Pew Charitable Trusts, a non-governmental organization. “It also underscores the urgency that we really need to focus and reinvest in efforts to address this public health issue.”
(This story has not been edited by seemayo staff and is published from a rss feed)