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Updated January 20th, 2022 at 15:23 IST

Antimicrobial resistance the leading cause of death worldwide, 4.95 M died in 2019: Study

“AMR is leading cause of death around the world, with the highest burdens in low-resource settings,” scientists concluded in their findings published Wednesday

Reported by: Zaini Majeed
Superbug Infections
IMAGE: Unsplash/Representative image | Image:self
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Scientists have urged for the need to address the infections related to Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) that poses a threat to human lives worldwide. According to a study published in The Lancet Journal, an estimated 4·95 million deaths were associated with AMR in 2019, including 1·27 million deaths that occurred due to the bacterial AMR.

Scientists are urging improvements to the existing antibiotics to limit the development of superbugs, or the bacteria that become resistant to the antibiotics and cause death. In Africa and South Asia, the mortality related to the superbugs was the highest, and the least impacted the Australian continent. 

Researchers obtained data from the hospital records, surveillance systems, and other sources from over 204 countries worldwide in 2019, that involved at least 471 million individual cases linked to AMR.

"We used predictive statistical modelling to produce estimates of AMR burden for all locations, including for locations with no data," explained the researchers in the study. Nearly 23 pathogens were studied, and of those only six, including an antibiotic-resistant strain of the stomach bug E.coli, accounted for over 900,000 deaths alone in 2019, and 3.5 million fatalities worldwide. 

Professor Chris Murray, the study’s co-author and a global health expert at the University of Washington, said that the figures were a “clear sign we must act now”.

“Previous estimates had predicted 10 million annual deaths from antimicrobial resistance by 2050, but we now know for certain that we are already far closer to that figure than we thought,” he said in the study. 

Scientists conducted the analysis based on five broad components - the number of deaths where infection played a role, the proportion of infectious deaths attributable to a given infectious syndrome, the proportion of infectious syndrome deaths attributable to a given pathogen, the percentage of a given pathogen resistant to an antibiotic of interest, and the excess risk of death or duration of an infection associated with this resistance. They then estimated the disease burden and its outcomes with respect to mortality. 

It was found that the all-age death rate attributable to resistance was the highest in western sub-Saharan Africa, 27·3 deaths per 100, 000. The lowest number of deaths from AMR was found in Australasia - 6·5 deaths per 100,000. "The respiratory infections accounted for more than 1·5 million deaths associated with resistance in 2019," the study revealed.

According to the researchers, the six major pathogens that caused deaths associated with the resistance are: Escherichia coli, followed by Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumonia, Streptococcus pneumonia, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

These pathogens, scientifically named, were responsible for 929, 000 deaths globally, and 3·57 million deaths in the year 2019 alone. The study published on Wednesday provided the first comprehensive assessment of the global burden of AMR. 

"AMR is a leading cause of death around the world, with the highest burdens in low-resource settings," scientists concluded in their findings, according to the study published in The Lancet. 

AMR to increase in years to come, will kill 10 million people globally

Researchers from the University of Washington and University of Oxford warned that the death toll related to the AMR is expected to spike in the years to come, unless stringent action was taken.

Some of the superbugs that are a leading cause of death due to resistance are in fact the bacteria which have evolved and demonstrate resistance to antibiotics. Around 1.2 million fatalities from bacteria or superbugs in the year 2019 is significantly much greater than the previous estimate by the World Health Organization [WHO] that put the AMR deaths at 700,000.

The superbugs, specifically, will kill close to 10 million people worldwide each year by 2050, the researchers purported. Some of the ways that the bacteria resistant to the antibiotics can kill a person is due to illness that spreads via coughing, contaminated food or drink, to an open wound, infecting organs such as the lungs, or even the bloodstream. And some of the notable health issues that an individual may face are inflammation, sepsis, or a weak immune system. 

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Published January 20th, 2022 at 15:23 IST

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