Magazine

Kenneth Thorpe, from Emery University in Atlanta, and his colleagues found in a study carried out in the USA, that while the overall number of bacterial infections remained relatively constant between 2002 and 2014, rising from 13.5 million to 14.3 million annually, the proportion that were antibiotic-resistant rose dramatically, from 5.2% to 11.0%. Patients with antibiotic-resistant infections had spending for bacterial infection that was 165 percent higher than spending by patients without such infections. Sixty-one percent of antibiotic-resistant infections were associated with urinary tract infections. Their conclusion is that the direct costs and the mortality and morbidity attributable to antibiotic-resistant infections make a compelling case for urgent action by national and international policy makers.