Every year 1.2 million people die from resistance to antimicrobial drugs

Laura Poy Solano

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday December 10, 2022, p. eleven

In the world, more than 1.2 million deaths per year are directly associated with antimicrobial resistance (RAM), that is, the lack of efficacy of antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitics.

The World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization (WHO/PAHO) warn of the risks imposed by the winter seasons and the inappropriate use of these drugs, since millions of people tend to self-medicate for symptoms of colds and other illnesses.

Data from the World Health Organization indicate that every year, 480,000 individuals have multi-resistant tuberculosis, also, that drug resistance begins to complicate the fight against HIV and malaria, to which other diseases are added.

In the region of the Americas, warns PAHO, microorganisms that cannot be attacked by these drugs are the main cause of infections associated with health care. He pointed out that data from the Latin American Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network show a growing trend in the behavior of hospital pathogens such as Klebsiella pneumoniae, whose absence of susceptibility to carbapenem antibiotics has increased significantly in Latin America since 2014, reaching an average of 21 percent.

Alert for excess mortality

In the subcontinent, he warns, more than 25 percent of the isolates of Staphylococcus aureus They are resistant to methicillin.

The result is a 45.2 percent excess mortality attributable to this condition, compared to sensitive strains, and an increase in the costs of antibiotic treatment (6.7 times higher) and hospitalization (almost 3 times higher).

In Mexico, the National Institute of Public Health has been studying this phenomenon for three decades, and in 2010 published a guide for the correct and recommended use of antimicrobials, which can save thousands of lives, but are increasingly ineffective for a excessive and inappropriate use of the population that self-medicates and in the production of meat and dairy products.