A new study published in The Lancet predicts that around 40 million people will die from antibiotic-resistant infections by 2050. The study also estimates that the number of deaths from such antibiotic-resistant infections will increase further in the coming decades.
Christopher JL, senior author of the study and director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said: “This is a big problem, and it’s going to be a long time coming.”
Researchers involved in the study warned that even simple infections are becoming harder to treat due to antibiotic resistance. The study also showed that older people are disproportionately affected by deaths from AMR (antimicrobial resistance) and are also at greater risk of infection.
Let us tell you that AMR means antimicrobial resistance which is faced when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and medicines no longer have an effect on them.
During the study, 520 million data points from 240 countries were analyzed, along with hospital discharge records, insurance claims and death certificates.
The authors found that antimicrobial resistance caused more than one million deaths each year between 1990 and 2021. They estimate that the number of deaths due to antimicrobial resistance will continue to increase.
Kevin Ikuta, lead author of the study and assistant professor of clinical medicine at UCLA, said 39 million deaths are expected over the next 25 years, which equates to about three deaths per minute.
The study also reported that deaths due to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) showed a more than 50% drop in deaths among children and more than 80% in deaths among people over 70 years old between 1990 and 2021.
The authors expressed hope that by 2050, deaths among children would decrease. However, over the same period, deaths among older people nearly doubled. As the global population ages and becomes more susceptible to infection, this change could result in higher numbers of deaths from antimicrobial resistance among older people than in other age groups.
Of the estimated 39 million AMR deaths, 11.8 million will occur in South Asia, with a large number of deaths also expected in sub-Saharan Africa. Ikuta warned against overuse and misuse of antibiotics. He said it contributes most to increasing bacterial resistance.
Ishani Ganguly, a primary care physician and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, also stressed that antibiotics should not be used unnecessarily. In the event of a common infection, instead of taking antibiotics, use home remedies such as gargling with water or steaming, Ganguly said.
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