Antibiotic crisis: Drug-resistant superbugs feared to claim millions of lives
AMR could claim almost 40 million lives over next 25 years with the elderly being at a higher risk
January 05, 2025
A former chief medical officer for England has warned the world for the coming years of a growing antibiotic emergency that could claim millions of lives and will have drastic impacts on people across the globe.
As per estimates, death rates from AMRs will be doubled by 2025 with figures directing to almost 40 million people losing their lives to superbugs over the next 25 years. The elderly will be at a higher risk, The Guardian reported.
According to Dame Sally Davies, routine procedures such as surgery and childbirth could pose real danger and carry widespread fatal risks because of the spread of bacteria that possesses antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
United Nations Environmental Program explains that, "AMR occurs when microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses, parasites, or fungi, become resistant to antimicrobial treatments to which they were previously susceptible. The more microbes are exposed to pharmaceuticals, such as antibiotics, the more likely they are to adapt to them".
“About a million people die every year because of the spread of microbial resistance, and that figure will rise over the next 25 years,” Davies told the Observer and added that “it is really scary”.
As people get older, they tend to live with chronic diseases and that makes them vulnerable to AMR, researchers say.
Doctors have tried to limit prescribing antibiotics to patients as much as they can while the patients have been pressed to finish courses of treatments.
However, misuse of antibiotics medically is not the only way by which resistance stems. It sprouts from the fact that about 70% of all antibiotics are given to livestock, prompting resistance to evolve in animals.
“We’re essentially throwing antibiotics at cows and chickens and sheep as cheap alternatives to giving them growth promoters or prophylactics to prevent the spread of disease,” said Davies.
“Bacteria take about 20 minutes to multiply. They also mutate a great deal, and if they do so in the presence of antibiotics and that mutation protects them, these strains will multiply. Crucially they can pass that on to any bacteria with which they make contact,” she added.
AMR is spreading with ease and it is becoming more and more vital and trivial that antibiotics in our possessions are not misused. Davies said that it brings forth the need for new antibiotics to be made and again this raises problems.
