LiveScience – A new report reveals that drug-resistant germs infect and kill more people than previous estimates suggested. The U.S. faces two new urgent threats to public health: a couple of drug-resistant germs called Candida auris and Acinetobacter, health officials announced today. These microbes have built up resilience against the drugs designed to kill them, meaning they can be incredibly dangerous and difficult to treat. In fact, drug-resistant bacteria and fungi may pose a greater threat to American health than previous estimates suggested, according to a report released today (Nov. 13) by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
A previous report, published in 2013, estimated that at least 2 million people in the U.S. get an antibiotic-resistant infection each year and that at least 23,000 people die from these infections. For the new report, CDC officials recrunched these numbers. They found that closer to 2.6 million drug-resistant infections likely occurred at the time of the last report, resulting in nearly 44,000 deaths — nearly double the previous estimate.
“We knew and said [in 2013] that our estimate was conservative … and we were right,” Michael Craig, a senior adviser for the CDC Antibiotic Resistance Coordination and Strategy Unit, said during a news conference today. Drawn from “millions and millions” of electronic records from 700 hospitals, along with other new data sources, the 2019 report provides a clearer picture of the danger that drug-resistant bugs pose to the nation’s health and global security, Craig said. READ MORE
