Global
drugmakers say they will clean up factories making antibiotics and take steps
to curb overuse to fight the increase in drug-resistant superbugs. The UN is
also planning a high-level meeting on the problem.
Deutsche Welle, 22 Sep 2016
World
leaders at the UN General Assembly are expected to sign up to a declaration
seeking to fight antibiotic-resistant superbugs on Wednesday. The draft
agreement included governments committing to bolster controls over the drug
market, step up awareness programs and encourage research in alternative
treatments.
Ahead of
this, 13 leading pharmaceutical companies worldwide - including Pfizer,
Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Allergan, Cipla, Wockhardt and Germany's Merck -
signed the declaration. The group planned to work with independent experts, who
would alter factory supply chains and standards, aiming to ensure that
antibiotics did not enter waterways and lead to the breeding of superbugs.
They also
agreed to raise awareness on the overuse of antibiotics for humans and for
livestock, and sought to remove incentives for selling the drugs in large
quantities.
Owing to
short life spans and rapid reproduction, bacteria can evolve at speeds far more
rapid than those of larger animals like mammals; exposure to antibiotics can
therefore lead to diseases developing resistance to the medication. This chance
increases if patients fail to complete a course of antibiotics, or if the drug
is widely present in low concentrations - for instance in the water supply.
The World
Health Organization (WHO) hoped the meeting would attract public funding to
tackle the issue. "We are losing our ability to treat infections,"
Keiji Fukuda, a senior WHO official, told reporters. "Not only does it
threaten to increase deaths, but our whole ability to handle patients is
threatened. It also threatens our ability to grow enough food," he added,
referring to the effects of drug-resistance bacteria on crops.
Drug-resistance means an increasing inability to treat infections |
'A big
social threat'
Drug-resistant
microbes were predicted by Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin,
decades ago. But according to Fukuda, the problem has accellerated in the last
few decades, compounded by little research into the development of new
antibiotics. Commonplace problems like skin and blood ailments and urinary
tract infections are becoming increasingly difficult to treat with antibiotics.
The UN says
tuberculosis is one of the most difficult infections to treat, with 480,000 people
a year developing some form of the disease which is resistant to treatment.
Sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhoea and infections transmitted in
hospitals also pose a serious threat.
"We
have not come up with any new class of antibiotics in at least two decades.
There is a dry pipeline," Fukuda told reporters. Superbugs have become a
"big societal threat," he said.
A recent British study predicted that globally, by 2050, superbug infections could claim
10 million lives per year, comparable to the current annual death toll from
cancer. The same report estimated that 700,000 people per year were currently
dying from antibiotic-reisistant illnesses.
mg/msh (Reuters, AP, AFP)
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