More than three million children in the world died in 2022 due to infections that were resistant to antibiotics, a study by two leading child health experts has shown.
Children in Africa and Southeast Asia are at the highest risk, according to the study.
Antimicrobial resistance develops when microbes that cause infections evolve so that antibiotics no longer work on them. It has been identified as one of the greatest public health threats in the world.
New research has shown the toll children are paying due to microbe resistance to antibiotics.
Using data from several sources, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank (WB), the authors of the study calculated that in 2022 more than three million children in the world died due to resistance to antibiotics.
Experts emphasized that this is more than a tenfold increase in the number of antibiotic-resistant infections in children in just three years.
The number may be higher due to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is stated.
The main authors of the study, Yanhong Jessika Hu from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Australia and Herb Harwell from the Clinton Health Access Initiative, drew attention to the significant increase in the use of antibiotics that should be used only for the most severe infections.
From 2019 to 2021, the use of antibiotics with a high risk of resistance increased by 160 percent in Southeast Asia and 126 percent in Africa.
In the same period, the use of antibiotics intended as a last resort, for severe infections resistant to multiple drugs, rose by 45 percent in Southeast Asia and 125 percent in Africa, according to the study.
The authors warned that if bacteria develop resistance to these antibiotics, there will be very few if any, alternatives for treatment. Professor Harwell warned that there are no easy solutions.
“This is a multidimensional problem that affects all aspects of medicine and human life,” he said.
The best way to avoid an antibiotic-resistant infection is to avoid the infection itself, which means higher levels of immunization, better water supply, and hygiene, he said.
“Antibiotics will be used more because more people need them, but we must make sure they are used appropriately and that the correct medicines are used.”
Lindsey Edwards, professor of microbiology at King’s College in London, said that the new research is a wake-up call and added:
“Without decisive action, antimicrobial resistance could undermine decades of progress in the field of child health, especially in the most vulnerable regions of the world.”, N1 writes.
