Bacteria That Pose Greatest Risk to Human Health

“These infections are responsible for high mortality rates, mostly in hospitalized patients, transplant recipients, those receiving chemotherapy, or patients in intensive care units”, Kieny said. While these pathogens are not widespread, “the burden for society is now alarming”, she said. “We have to focus specifically for a much smaller range of bacteria”, specifically targeting the three highest-priority pathogens, Kieny said. The lack of antibiotics to take on these thugs is scary with a capital “Y”, as in why isn’t there more urgency and dedicated resources to develop new antibiotics, reduce antibiotics use, and bolster infection control programs?

The second- and third-priority groups in the list include other drug-resistant bugs that result in more common conditions such as gonorrhea and salmonella poisoning via contaminated food. Agricultural antibiotic use is also a contributing factor, with the human consumption of antibiotic-treated chicken and livestock further increasing resistance. And those under the medium priority umbrella include resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae, a common cause of pneumonia, and resistant Shigella, a foodborne germ.

It’s expected that antibiotic resistance, and the WHO’s list, will be one of the topics discussed at a preliminary conference of the G20 summit to be held later this week in Berlin, Germany.

Superbugs have always been a concern of the medical community, with a World Bank report a year ago warning that human antibiotic resistance combined with the rise of superbugs could potentially kill 10 million people by 2050 and devastate the economies of some countries. Da Silva said those codes are being revised. The bacteria have built in qualities to find new methods to resist the treatment, passing along genetic material, allowing other bacteria to be drug resistant like them.

Last year, Jim O’Neill, a former Goldman Sachs economist who was then a UK Treasury minister, proposed a multibillion-dollar levy on pharmaceutical companies to pay for the development of new antibiotics. The objective behind listing the bacteria is to help scientists identify the pathogens and as well as develop newer effective antibiotics. The reasons for this are both scientific and financial. Additionally, there was a greater-but not statistically significant-risk of death among pediatric patients infected with the resistant bacterial strains.

The global organization is recommending governments worldwide and pharmaceutical companies to list these bacterias as the priorities when developing antibiotics to be offered to the public.

The WHO hopes the list will encourage countries to implement policies that incentivize basic research and antibiotic development. China, the USA, and Britain have all taken steps to start those funds. Beyond calling for novel antimicrobials, she said, “we need also to look at how best.to avoid overuse and misuse”.

World Health Organization developed its list together with the division of infectious diseases at the University of Tübingen in Germany. “Bacteria don’t need passports, they don’t need visas, and walls aren’t going to slow them down”, Fowler told CIDRAP News.

Shown here are two mustard-colored, rod-shaped carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumonias bacteria, part of the family of germs known as Enterobacteriaceae.

In 2014, 46 per cent of Australians were supplied with at least one antibiotic. “It’s nearly unique to Australia that we have this high rate”.