Thursday, November 17, 2011 4:38:53 PM
Europe in the grip of drug-resistant superbugs
LONDON (Reuters) – Superbugs capable of evading even the most powerful antibiotics are increasing their grip in Europe with rates of drug resistance in one type of bacteria reaching 50 percent in the worst-hit countries, health officials said Thursday.
In a report on multi-drug resistant bacteria, or so-called superbugs, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease across the European Union, said the need to combat resistance was “critical.”
“We need to declare a war — a war against these bacteria,” the ECDC’s director Marc Sprenger told Reuters in an interview about the report.
“If we don’t … we’ll get lots of infections and many vulnerable patients will become severely ill, and we don’t have the antibiotics to treat them.”
Sprenger said that across the region, rates of resistance to last-line antibiotics by a bacteria called Klebsiella pneumoniae had more than doubled to 15 percent by 2010 from around 7 percent five years ago.
“What’s even more worrying is that there’s a great diversity among different countries in Europe — and some countries have resistance of almost 50 percent,” he said. Read more
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/17/europe-in-the-grip-of-drug-resistant-superbugs/
LONDON (Reuters) – Superbugs capable of evading even the most powerful antibiotics are increasing their grip in Europe with rates of drug resistance in one type of bacteria reaching 50 percent in the worst-hit countries, health officials said Thursday.
In a report on multi-drug resistant bacteria, or so-called superbugs, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease across the European Union, said the need to combat resistance was “critical.”
“We need to declare a war — a war against these bacteria,” the ECDC’s director Marc Sprenger told Reuters in an interview about the report.
“If we don’t … we’ll get lots of infections and many vulnerable patients will become severely ill, and we don’t have the antibiotics to treat them.”
Sprenger said that across the region, rates of resistance to last-line antibiotics by a bacteria called Klebsiella pneumoniae had more than doubled to 15 percent by 2010 from around 7 percent five years ago.
“What’s even more worrying is that there’s a great diversity among different countries in Europe — and some countries have resistance of almost 50 percent,” he said. Read more
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/17/europe-in-the-grip-of-drug-resistant-superbugs/
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