Common bacterial infections are becoming increasingly resistant to therapeutic agents. WHO warns of widespread resistance to standard antibiotics Healthcare
One in six laboratory-confirmed cases of common bacterial infections worldwide in 2023 was resistant to antibiotic treatment. Over the period from 2018 to 2023, more than 40 percent of monitored pathogen-antibiotic combinations showed an increase in resistance, with an annual increase of 5–15 percent. These are the findings of a report published today by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Data from more than a hundred countries in the WHO Global Monitoring System for Antimicrobial Resistance and Use (GLASS) shows that rising resistance to critical antibiotics is increasingly threatening health population.
The new edition of the Global Antibiotic Resistance Report provides the first estimates for 22 antibiotics used to treat urinary tract, gastrointestinal and bloodstream infections, and gonorrhea. Report provides data on eight common bacterial pathogens – Acinetobacter spp., Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, non-typhoid Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae.
Risk varies by region
WHO estimates that antibiotic resistance is highest in the regions of Southeast Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean, where a third of documented infections are resistant. In the WHO African Region, resistance was observed in one fifth of cases. Additionally, antibiotic nonsensitivity is more common and increasing in countries where health care facilities lack adequate capacity to detect and treat bacterial infections.
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“Modern medicine cannot keep pace with the growth of antimicrobial resistance antibiotics, and this poses a threat to the health of every family around the world,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
According to him, it is necessary to use antibiotics responsibly, ensuring everyone has access to necessary medicines, quality diagnostics and vaccines.
Gram-negative bacteria are the greatest threat
The report notes an increasing global threat from the spread of drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. Among them, those most notable are those who are insensitive to drugs. strains E. coli&n bsp;and K. pneumoniae, most often detected in bloodstream infections. They are the causative agents of a number of severe bacterial infections, often leading to sepsis, functional organ failure and death. Moreover, today more than 40 percent of strains E. coli and more than 55 percent strains K. pneumoniae demonstrate resistance to third-generation cephalosporins – first-line drugs used to treat these infections. Moreover, in the African region the proportion of such strains exceeds 70 percent.
A number of other life-saving antibiotics, including carbapenems and fluoroquinolones, are losing their effectiveness in regarding E. coli, K. pneumonia e, Salmonella& Acinetobacter. Carbapenem resistance was rare in the past, but is now becoming more common and narrowing the range of treatment options.
Gaps in surveillance
2016 to 2023 the share of participants in the WHO monitoring system quadrupled – from 25 to 104 countries. However, 48 percent of them did not report data in 2023, and about half do not have reliable information collection systems. Moreover, surveillance infrastructure for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is lacking in countries where it is most at risk.
In the Political Declaration on AMR adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2024 targets have been set to combat resistance by strengthening health systems and coordinating actions in the medical, veterinary and environmental sectors.
WHO calls on all countries to 2030 provide quality data on AMR and antimicrobial use. Countries should increasingly apply coordinated measures at all levels of the health system, taking into account local trends in the spread of resistance when choosing treatment protocols and purchasing medicines.