Superbugs killed 33 000 Europeans in 2015: study

Drug-resistant bacteria killed more than 33,000 people in the European Union in 2015, according to a new study released this week, warning that superbugs "are threatening modern healthcare."

In a study published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, an EU-wide team of doctors reviewed data from over a dozen combinations of antibiotic-resistant bacteria across the continent and developed a model for infection and mortality rates of five types of bedbugs.

They found that more than 670,000 people became ill from these five strains in 2015, resulting in the death of about 33,110 people.

This burden of these deaths in the EU "was similar to the cumulative burden of influenza, tuberculosis and HIV" over the same period, the authors noted.

The majority of deaths were thought to have occurred in infants under 12 months of age and over 65 years of age.

Mortality burden was highest in Italy and Greece, with Italy alone accounting for more than one third of all superbug deaths in the European Union during the year under review. .

While antibiotic consumption is skyrocketing worldwide, doctors have often sounded the alarm over strains of multidrug-resistant bacteria.

A team of Australian scientists warned in September of the spread of a bacterium safe from all known drugs.

The superbug, Staphylococcus epidermidis, can cause serious infections and death. It is related to MRSA, better known and more deadly.

Of the more than 670,000 superbug infections in Europe in 2015, nearly two-thirds occurred in hospitals, said the team behind the Lancet study.

"Our finding that much of the estimated burden lay in hospitals and other health care facilities suggests the urgent need to treat antimicrobial resistance as a patient safety issue and the need to find ways to improve the safety of patients." other treatment options for patients with such infections, "they wrote.

The researchers retained the special attention of Italy and Greece, which accounted for one-fifth of all infections.

During the study period, more than 10 000 people died in Italy of bacteria, including E-coli and MRSA, which, according to the team, is significant "even though it is consider its large aging population ".

In Greece, where most deaths were attributed to a single strain of drug-resistant bacteria, the authors stated that there was an "urgent need" to increase defenses against some superbugs.

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