33 000 Europeans died in 2015 because of resistant bacteria [Internacional] – the 11/06/2018

Paris.- Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are responsible for the deaths of 33,000 people in the European Union in 2015, according to calculations of European researchers published Tuesday in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Researchers have developed a calculation model for five types of infections based on data from the European Surveillance Network on Antimicrobial Resistance (EARS).

For 2015, they calculated the number of people infected at 671 000 689 and the number of deaths attributable to multidrug-resistant bacteria to 33 000 110.

The impact is "comparable to the cumulative effect of influenza, tuberculosis and the AIDS virus" over the same period, according to the authors.

The majority of deaths are in children under 12 and those over 65 years of age. The impact in terms of mortality is greater in Italy and Greece (the former concentrates more than a third of deaths), according to the study.

The medical sector constantly warns against the risk of excessive or inappropriate use of antibiotics, which makes the bacteria resistant to them.

An Australian team highlighted in September the dangerous spread of bacteria resistant to all existing drugs, Staphylococcus epidermidis, which can cause serious illness or death, and is linked to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Of the 671,689 infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria in 2015, about two-thirds were contracted in hospitals.

Researchers stress "the urgency of considering antibiotic resistance as a vital fact for health" and "the need to design alternative treatments for patients with other diseases and more vulnerable because of the Weakening of their immune defenses or their age ".