NEW YORK (AP) — The number of drug-resistant “superbug” infections has worsened in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.
NEW YORK (AP) — The number of drug-resistant “superbug” infections has worsened in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.
After years of decline, 2020 ushered in a 15 percent increase in hospital-acquired infections and deaths caused by some of the most worrisome bacterial infections, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Arjun Srinivasan, an expert at the CDC, called it an “astonishing turnaround” in what he hopes is a one-year breakthrough.
CDC officials believe several factors may have caused the rise, including how COVID-19 was treated when it first hit the U.S. in early 2020.
Antimicrobial resistance occurs when microbes such as bacteria and fungi gain the power to fight off drugs designed to kill them. Antibiotic abuse was a big reason—unfinished or unnecessary prescriptions that didn’t kill the germs made them stronger.
Before the pandemic, health officials said superbug infections in the U.S. appeared to be on the decline. Deaths fell 18 percent between 2012 and 2017, when about 36,000 Americans died from drug-resistant infections. The government credits hospitals with using antibiotics more judiciously and isolating patients who could spread the germs.
The CDC doesn’t have 2020 data on all superbugs, in part because health officials had to focus on COVID-19. But there is evidence from seven types of bacterial and fungal infections found in hospital patients, including MRSA and a bug called CRE, known as the “nightmare bacteria”.
The CDC has seen an increase of 15% or more in infections and deaths from this group of germs.
One possible reason: From March to October 2020, nearly 80 percent of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 received an antibiotic, CDC officials said. The use of certain types of antibiotics soared as doctors aggressively used different drugs to fight not only the coronavirus but also bacterial co-infections that could overtake their debilitated patients.
By 2021, overall antibiotic use has declined. And Srinivasan noted that the use of catheters, ventilators and other medical devices could also decrease. These devices, which are used on seriously ill patients, can become an invasion of patients’ bodies for drug-resistant microbes.
Still, any spike in hospitalizations for COVID-19 — like the one currently being seen in the U.S. — increases that risk, he said.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Division is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Division. AP is solely responsible for all content.
Mike Stobe, Associated Press
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