Superbacteria: WHO warns of lack of new antibiotics

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Friday that the lack of new antibiotics is threatening the fight against the spread of drug-resistant bacteria. These kill tens of thousands of people every year.

The specialized agency of the UN has published two new reports on the lack of new antibiotics in development.

“The threat of antimicrobial resistance has never been more immediate and the need for solutions more urgent,” said WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, quoted in a statement.

“There are many initiatives underway to reduce resistance, but we also need countries and the pharmaceutical industry to get more involved and provide sustainable funding and new innovative drugs,” he added.

Over 30,000 deaths a year in Europe

Antibiotic resistance (the fact that certain bacteria eventually become resistant to antibiotics) is considered a threat by the WHO, which fears that the world is moving into an era in which common infections may start to kill again.

Some 33,000 people die every year in Europe from an antibiotic-resistant infection according to European data, while in the United States the deaths are estimated at nearly 35,000.

“We see that it is spreading and that we are running out of antibiotics effective against these resistant bacteria,” said Peter Beyer, of the WHO Department of Essential Medicines, during a press briefing in Geneva. “It is one of the biggest threats to health that we have identified,” he said.

Develop new antibiotics

Discovered in the 1920s, antibiotics saved tens of millions of lives by effectively fighting bacteriological diseases like pneumonia, tuberculosis and meningitis. But over the decades, bacteria have changed to resist these drugs.

Bacteria can become resistant when patients use antibiotics they don’t need, or don’t finish their treatment, giving the bacteria a chance to survive and develop immunity. To counter this resistance, the WHO calls for the development of new antibiotics, but this process is complicated and costly.

According to the WHO, the 60 new drugs that are being developed, including 50 antibiotics, to treat pathogens “bring little advantages compared to existing treatments and only two target the most resistant bacteria”, say Gram negative bacteria.

Other more innovative drugs are in the preclinical trials stage. Of these last 252 drugs, the most advanced will not be available for about ten years, according to WHO.