Drug-resistant germs, known as superbugs, infect more than two million people each year, 23,000 of which die from their infections, according to a recent NBC News article.
Although doctors have been warned of the problem for decades, up to half of prescriptions written for antibiotics are unnecessary, making the superbug problem even worse.
C. difficile is biggest killer by far, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and has become a scourge of hospitals. The infection is made possible when patients are heavily treated with antibiotics to fight other infections and can cause unstoppable diarrhea.
The most immediate problem is in hospitals and when patients do not finish a prescribed course of antibiotics. The CDC reported that no new antibiotics are in the immediate works that would kill any of these superbugs, meaning patients may have to be treated with older, more toxic drugs, or with cocktails of antibiotics that may cause side-effects.
"If we are not careful, the medicine chest will be empty when we go there to look for a lifesaving antibiotic for somebody who has a deadly infection," sad CDC director Tom Frieden. "Without care we will soon be in a post-antibiotic era. For some infections...we are already there." Read the full story here:
23,000 killed by superbugs in US each year, CDC says
Healthcare-acquired infections are rising every year and the ability of antibiotics to treat these infections is decreasing.
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