CDC warns of 'catastrophic' results of increased drug resistance Centers for Disease Control says 23,000 people a year die as a direct result of resistance and 14,000 die from related infections...
[While this is mostly about things in the USA, we in the UK are not immune to the effects.]
"The US faces "potentially catastrophic consequences" if it does not act immediately to combat drug resistance which already kills an estimated 23,000 people a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Monday.
It is the first time the federal agency has estimated the death toll from bacterial infections that are difficult to treat because of antibiotic resistance.
Every year, at least two million people in the US become ill with drug-resistant infections, the CDC said. While the CDC estimates that 23,000 patients a year die as a direct result of drug resistance, it notes that a further 14,000 die every year from clostridium difficile, an infection related to antibiotic use....
...One of the most problematic bacteria is the staph infection MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, which kills about 11,000 people every year.
Dr Margaret Chan, the director general of the WHO, said in March last year that the overuse of antibiotics was becoming so common she feared a situation where normal infections such as "strep throat or a child's scratched knee" could kill, because bacteria had evolved to survive treatments.
The CDC report said that while it was difficult to directly compare the amount of drugs used in food animals with the amount used in humans, there was evidence that more drugs were used in livestock. The use of antibiotics for promoting growth should be phased out, it said. The Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) estimates that 80% of antibiotics sold in the US are used on animals, and that 80% of those are used on healthy animals, in order to prevent disease and infection and to promote growth..."
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/16/cdc-drug-resistance-antibiotics-report 