Cape Town - Resistance to common antibiotic medicine has been recorded in every region of the world, according to a report released on Thursday by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Dr Keiji Fukuda, WHO’s assistant director-general for health security, said: “Without urgent, co-ordinated action, the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era in which common infections can once again kill.
The report draws on data from 114 countries and focuses on antibiotic resistance to bacteria that cause common but serious diseases such as sepsis, diarrhoea, pneumonia, urinary tract infections and gonorrhoea.
One South Asian child dies every five minutes from drug-resistant bacteria, while about 25 000 Europeans die every year from similar infections.
About half of all antibiotic prescriptions are estimated to be unnecessary, which is driving the development of drug-resistant “super-bugs”.
In India, Thailand and Vietnam people can buy antibiotics without a prescription.
Resistance to carbapenem, the last resort for treating Klebsiella pneumonia, has been recorded throughout the world. Klebsiella pneumonia is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections such as pneumonia, sepsis, infections in newborns and intensive-care unit patients.
In some countries, more than half of people are already resistant to carbapenem. The first patient with Klebsiella pneumonia, who was resistant to all antibiotics, was recorded in South Africa last year.
Resistance to fluoroquinolones, used to treat urinary tract infections caused by E. coli, is very widespread. In many parts of the world this treatment is now ineffective in more than half of patients.
“Treatment failure of the last resort of treatment for gonorrhoea – third generation cephalosporins – has been confirmed in Austria, Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Norway, South Africa, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK,” the report said.
Fukuda said: “Unless we take significant actions to improve efforts to prevent infections and also change how we produce, prescribe and use antibiotics, the world will lose more and more of these global public health goods and the implications will be devastating.”
This report is kick-starting a global effort led by WHO to address drug resistance. This will involve improved collaboration to track drug resistance, measure its health and economic impacts, and design solutions.
Ordinary people can help by using antibiotics only when prescribed by a doctor, completing the full prescription, even if they feel better, and never sharing antibiotics with others.
Dr Jennifer Cohn, Medical Director, Médecins Sans Frontières Access Campaign, said her organisation was seeing “horrendous rates of antibiotic resistance wherever we look, including children admitted to nutritional centres in Niger”.
“WHO’s report should be a wake-up call to governments to introduce incentives to develop new, affordable antibiotics that do not rely on patents and high prices and are adapted to the needs of developing countries,” said Cohn.
South Africa is in the process of setting up a ministerial advisory committee, including representatives from the public and private sector, to help the Health Department to deal with drug-resistance, according to director-general Precious Matsoso.
Health-e News Service