Facing theantibiotic resistance and numbers of intractable bacteria, the world lacks new antibiotics performance, according to new report from the World Health Organization.
“Antibiotic resistance is a global health emergency that seriously jeopardizes the progress of modern medicine,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO in the press release from his organization.
He considers “urgent to increase investment in research and development for infections resistant to antibiotics, including tuberculosis”.
12 priority pathogens
In its report, the WHO indicates that in addition to the tuberculosis multiresistant, it identifies 12 classes of priority pathogens, some of which cause common infections such as pneumonia or urinary tract infections, which are increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics. This is why it is necessary to find new treatments.
“Tuberculosis research is underfunded,” notes Dr. Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO global program to fight this infectious disease. “More than 800 million dollars a year would be needed to find new drugs. Prevention and appropriate use of antibiotics – both for humans and animals – are also part of the means of combating this threat, ”recalls the WHO.
Few innovative treatments
WHO has identified 51 new antibiotics and biologicals in clinical development that could be used to treat these priority pathogens as well as tuberculosis and the Clostridium difficile, a sometimes fatal diarrheal infection.
But, she recalls that “only 8 of these drug candidates are classified by the WHO as innovative treatments usefully complementing the current arsenal of treatments antibiotics “.
“Pharmaceutical companies and researchers need to rush to work on new antibiotics for some very serious types of infections that lead to death within days, which we are not armed against,” says Dr Suzanne Hill, Director of the Department of Essential Medicines at WHO.
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