Everyone everywhere is now at risk given global antibiotic resistance levels that could lead to common infections and slight injuries causing deaths, according to a newly published World Health Organization report.
"Without urgent, coordinated action by many stakeholders, the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries which have been treatable for decades can once again kill," says Dr Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general for health security.
Fukuda warns that unless new antibiotics are created the implications will be "devastating." The report include data from 114 countries and is the group's first global investigation regarding antibiotic resistance.
"Effective antibiotics have been one of the pillars allowing us to live longer, live healthier, and benefit from modern medicine. Unless we take significant actions to improve efforts to prevent infections and also change how we produce, prescribe and use antibiotics, the world will lose more and more of these global public health goods," he stated in an announcement on the report, "Antimicrobial resistance: global report on surveillance."
While resistance is happening across a wide range of infectious agents, the report targets seven bacteria most responsible for serious common ailments such as diarrhea, urinary tract infection (UTI) and pneumonia.
"Resistance to the treatment of last resort for life-threatening infections caused by a common intestinal bacteria, Klebsiella pneumoniae-carbapenem antibiotics-has spread to all regions of the world," states the report. In some countries antibiotics would not help half of those suffering from pneumonia infections.
The report reveals that in the 1980s there was no resistance to one of the most common medicines for UTIs. Now the current antibiotic is ineffective in more than half of patients in many countries.
The study says countries have to begin tracking and monitoring the issue and those already doing so need to do a better job.
Better hygiene, clean water and vaccination programs can also stem the serious problem, states the report.
"This will involve the development of tools and standards and improved collaboration around the world to track drug resistance, measure its health and economic impacts, and design targeted solutions," the report notes.
