More than 39M could die from superbugs by 2050
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More than 39 million people could die between now and the middle of this century due to infections stemming from superbugs that are resistant to widely used antibiotics, a new study in The Lancet projects.
Why it matters: It's billed as the first in-depth analysis of the global health impacts of antimicrobial resistance and reinforces earlier findings that superbugs can be more fatal than diseases like HIV/AIDS.
- "Antimicrobial medicines are one of the cornerstones of modern healthcare, and increasing resistance to them is a major cause for concern," said study author Mohsen Naghavi of the Institute of Health Metrics at the University of Washington in a statement.
By the numbers: More than 1 million people died annually as a result of antimicrobial-resistant infections between 1990 and 2021, the researchers from the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) Project found.
- They estimate that number could reach 1.9 million deaths annually by 2050, a 67.5% increase compared with 2021.
- The annual number of deaths in which antimicrobial-resistant bacteria play a role will increase from 4.7 million to 8.2 million — a roughly 75% increase — they found.
- In all, they estimate antimicrobial resistance could lead directly to more than 39 million deaths and be associated with 169 million deaths.
Zoom in: The U.S. government released a report Monday on the burden of sepsis showing it led to more than 16.7 million hospital days and aggregate hospital costs of over $52.1 billion in 2021.
- Sepsis is the body's life-threatening response to an infection and one of the most significant health complications from antimicrobial resistant infections.
The bottom line: Officials said the findings reiterate the importance of infection prevention, vaccination, minimizing inappropriate antibiotic use, and research into new antibiotics.
