More than two million people are infected with bacteria resistant to antibiotics each year in the United States. 23,000 Americans die from it each year.
23,000 dead! This is the number of deaths attributed to infections with antibiotic resistant bacteria each year in the United States. Information revealed in a report published on Monday by the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) and relayed by the APM which constitutes the first inventory to assess the consequences of resistant bacteria of the most concern for human health.
The report “Threats of Antibiotic Resistance in the United States in 2013” states that more than two million people are infected with resistant bacteria each year in the United States. CDC experts have categorized the various bacterial infections into three threat categories: urgent, serious, and special concern.
By evaluating, for each bacterial infection, its health and economic impact, its current and future frequency, its diffusion capacity, as well as the antibiotics and prevention tools available, the CDC believes that the urgent threats relate to Enterobacteriaceae resistant to carbapenems, as well as than gonorrhea and Clostridium difficile resistant to antibiotics.
According to Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, “If we don’t act now, we will no longer have antibiotics to save lives. In order to effectively fight bacterial resistance to antibiotics, the CDC advocates changing the use of antibiotics. According to the US public health agency, half of the antibiotics used in humans are not necessary.
In France, the situation does not have the magnitude of the United States but remains problematic. 6-8% of Enterobacteriaceae are resistant to the very common class of antibiotics, cephalosporins. “This still means that there are 70,000 urinary tract infections each year that general practitioners will have difficulty treating”, warned at the end of 2012 on why actor Prof. Patrice Nordmann, bacteriologist at the Kremlin-Bicêtre hospital.
But as regards multiresistant bacteria, only 200 to 300 strains were isolated in France during the first 6 months of 2012, mainly imported by foreign patients.
Since the summer of 2010, the General Management has recommended that bacteria be tested for resistance to carbapenems (the last resort antibiotics) in all patients transferred from a foreign hospital or recently hospitalized outside France.
Isolation measures are then applied, which explains the absence of massive epidemics in France unlike our European neighbors (Italy, Greece).
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