Superbugs a looming threat
Surveillance in the treatment of animals
can play a part in prevention
Issued by: Keyter Rech Investor Solutions
Deborah Chapman 087 351 3816 / 076 650 4155
03 November 2015
www.vtech.co.za
In support of the first WHO World Antibiotic Awareness Week: 16-22 November 2015
Triggered by a recent insert in well-known local
television programme, superbugs are back in the
news in South Africa. This worldwide threat is also the
reason for the World Health Organisation’s new global
campaign “Antibiotics: Handle with Care”, which
is calling on individuals, governments, health and
agricultural professionals to take action to address this
urgent problem.
For those not in the know, “superbug” is a term
used to describe bacteria that cannot be killed using
multiple antibiotics. Also called “multidrug-resistant
bacteria”, this threat to human health has been
making headlines around the world as the medical
fraternity, and increasingly governments, express
apprehension about how the crisis is being managed.
The real concern, however, is that eventually doctors
will run out of antibiotics to treat disease-causing
bacteria in humans.
Some statistics:
•
According to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) in the US, every year about 2
million people get sick from a superbug. About
23,000 die.
•
•
•
By 2050, antibiotic-resistant bugs could kill an
estimated 10 million people each year. This
would surpass even cancer.
The number of Food and Drug Administration
approved antibiotics in the US has decreased
steadily in the past two decades. Only nine new
antibiotics have been approved by the agency in
the last decade.
Current costs to develop a new antibiotic run to
approximately US$1 billion; most of the world’s
largest pharmaceutical companies stopped
making antibiotics long ago, citing high costs of
development and low returns.
Alarmingly, the single leading factor contributing to
the problem is the misuse of antibiotics. By taking
antibiotics when we don’t need them, or by not
finishing a course of prescribed antibiotics, humans
are creating an increasing resistance to the very drugs
designed to make us well.
“When used properly, antibiotics can help destroy
disease-causing bacteria. But if you take an antibiotic
when you have a viral infection such as the flu, the
antibiotic won’t affect the viruses making you sick.
Instead, it’ll destroy a wide variety of bacteria in
2015
DECEMBER
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