WHO estimates that by 2050 superbugs will kill more than cancer

When we talk about the diseases that kill the most in the world, it is common for cancer, heart or lung problems to come to mind. But, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), we have a new problem: antibiotic resistance. The estimate is that from 2050 onwards, antibiotic-resistant bacteria will kill at least 10 million people per year, a higher number than the current number of deaths caused by cancer.

This resistance is acquired through the inappropriate use of antibiotics and can be extended to animal and agricultural production. It is a serious and global health problem that occurs when bacteria are not eliminated during treatment due to genetic mutations that confer resistance. Among the most susceptible places are hospitals, intensive care units (ICUs), but it can also happen during home treatments.

The medicines cited by the WHO are antimicrobials, which include antibiotics, but can also be antiviral, antifungal and antiparasitic. Some of the most common, when used inappropriately or excessively, are: quinolones, cephalosporins, penicillin, macrolides and tetracyclines. In addition to these, other less common antibiotics can contribute to the selection of more resistant bacteria.

Resistance brings harm to global health and pharmacoeconomics

According to Dr. Fernando Henrique Gonçalves, intensive care physician at VITA Hospital, the health risks are great. “Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is currently one of the most relevant public health problems, since many bacteria, previously susceptible to commonly used antibiotics, no longer respond to these same agents. Antibiotic resistance is responsible for serious clinical and economic consequences, related to increased morbidity and mortality due to the delay in the administration of effective treatments against infections caused by resistant bacteria”.

In addition to worsening the infectious situation, resistance also puts the treatment of infections caused by viruses, parasites, fungi and other diseases at risk and even becomes a negative factor in advanced procedures, such as chemotherapy or organ transplantation.

Another sector that is affected by resistance is the economic sector, as once the patient is hospitalized and antibiotics do not respond, the amount spent on medications tends to increase, as does hospitalization costs. “Prolonged hospitalization and the use of antibiotics other than first-line antibiotics significantly increase healthcare costs, which constitutes a particularly relevant problem, considering the finite resources that support healthcare systems”, he highlights.

Molecular tests identify resistance

Knowing what resistance the bacteria has allows the treatment carried out to be assertive, contributing to the person’s health, in addition to reducing hospitalization time and spending on medications that may not be effective. Mobius, a company that develops and markets products aimed at the diagnostic medicine segment focused on molecular biology, launched the kit MDR Direct Flowchip Kit, which performs the identification of multi-resistant microorganisms by multiplex PCR and reverse hybridization, being the detection of five bacterial species (S. aureus, K. pneumoniae, P. aeruginosa, E. coli It is A. baumannii) and 56 resistance counters which include the main enzymatic-type mechanisms.

“It is necessary to know that some patients, especially those hospitalized or recently admitted to hospital, can be colonized by multi-resistant bacteria, without necessarily meaning that they have an infection. But the importance of determining whether there is this type of colonization impacts contact isolation measures, for example, to avoid cross-infection within the hospital environment. Determining whether a bacteria is multidrug-resistant or not is essential for the outcome of the treatment. There are research methods to determine this degree of resistance, some of these tests are simpler, but others require more sophisticated methods according to the molecular basis of bacterial resistance, including genetic analysis,” explains Dr. Fernando.

How to prevent resistance?

More than ten years ago, the National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) determined that antimicrobials can only be sold with a medical prescription in Brazil. This act is a way of ensuring that these medications will only be used to treat bacterial infections diagnosed by a healthcare professional, preventing self-medication and the consumption of these medications to treat viral infections, such as a simple flu.

Avoiding self-medication is a way to prevent antibiotic resistance, but also to carry out the correct treatment, even if there is improvement before the end of the cycle, as this guarantees the effectiveness of the treatment. Still according to the intensive care doctor, another way to prevent the emergence and spread of bacterial resistance is to restrict the consumption of antibiotics in veterinary practice and in animal production, activities responsible for the inadequate consumption of many antibiotics.

*With information from consultancy.

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