CDC: Deaths from Superbug Infection Rise in Early Covid-19 Pandemic

Superbugs are antibiotic -resistant germs.

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — The number of infection cases superbug drug resistance worsened during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. According to a report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the pandemic triggered an increase of about 15 percent in infections and deaths caused by some of the most worrying infections.

CDC expert, Dr Arjun Srinivasan, calls this a serious problem. He suspects several factors may have contributed to the spike in cases, including the way Covid-19 was handled in early 2020, when the virus first spread in the US.

Antimicrobial resistance occurs when germs such as bacteria and fungi gain the power to fight off a drug. Abuse antibiotics is a big reason for resistance, where many patients do not take their drugs as prescribed or even take antibiotics without a prescription, which makes germs grow stronger.

Before the pandemic, the CDC recorded infections superbug in the US appears to be declining. Deaths fell 18 percent between 2012 and 2017, when about 36,000 Americans died from drug-resistant infections.

At that time, the government appreciated hospitals for using antibiotics more wisely and swiftly isolating patients who might be spreading germs. Until now, the CDC has not had complete data on all of them superbug in 2020.

This is because in part because health officials have had to focus on Covid-19. But the CDC has data on seven types of bacterial and fungal infections detected in hospital patients.

Two of them are bacteria Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) are known as “nightmare bacteria” because they have high levels of resistance to commonly used antibiotics. The CDC saw a 15 percent or more increase in infections and deaths from that group of germs.