One in eight deaths registered in 2019 is linked to bacterial infections, which were the second leading cause of death in the world that year, reveals a study published Tuesday in the scientific journal Lancet.
In that year, 7.7 million deaths (13.6% of the total) were linked to 33 common bacterial infections, with more than half of the cases linked to just five bacteria (S. aureus, E. coli, S. pneumoniae, K. pneumoniae and P. aeruginosa), the research shows.
“These new data reveal, for the first time, the scope of the challenge that bacterial infections pose to public health around the world,” said Christopher Murray, study co-author and director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME, for its acronym in English) of the University of Washington, quoted in the publication of the report.
The calculations were performed “for all ages and sexes” in 204 countries and territories, and the researchers used 343 million “individual and isolated pathogen records to estimate deaths associated with each pathogen and the type of infection responsible.”
The new study “provides the first global estimates of mortality associated with 33 common bacterial pathogens and the 11 major types of infection, known as infectious syndromes, that lead to death from sepsis.”
More than 75% of those 7.7 million deaths were due to three syndromes: lower respiratory tract infections, bloodstream infections, and peritoneal and intra-abdominal infections.
Regarding the five bacteria responsible for more than half of the deaths, the main one is S. aureus (1.1 million deaths), followed by E. coli (950 thousand deaths), S. pneumoniae (829 thousand), K. pneumoniae (790,000) and P. aeruginosa (559,000). These pathogens caused “a similar number of deaths in women and men.”
But death rates based on age and the deadliest type of pathogens vary by location.
Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest death rate (230 deaths per 100,000 population), while the highest-income superregion (which includes countries in Western Europe, North America, and Australasia) had the lowest (52 deaths per 100 000 inhabitants).
By country, the Central African Republic had the highest rate (394 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and Iceland the lowest (35.7 per 100,000).
According to the study, S. aureus was the leading bacterial cause of death in 135 countries, followed by E. coli (37 countries), S. pneumoniae (24 countries), and K. pneumoniae and Acinetobacter baumannii (4 countries each).
The pathogens associated with most deaths also differ by age.
S. aureus was associated with the most deaths in adults older than 15 years, and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi was associated with the most deaths in children 5 to 14 years of age.
The pathogen associated with the highest number of neonatal deaths was K. pneumoniae, while S. pneumoniae was the deadliest in children under five years of age, with the exception of newborns, the study showed.
The researchers note that while many estimates exist for pathogens such as tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), estimates of the health burden of bacterial pathogens have so far been limited to a handful of specific types. and types of infection or focused. only in certain populations.
In 2019, S. aureus and E. coli were associated with more deaths than HIV/AIDS, but analyzes show that 42 billion dollars (about 41 billion euros) were spent on research on this virus, while the related with E. coli he received 800 million (781.4 million euros).
The study admits that the differences may be due to a lack of data on the global importance of these infections.
“Until now, the lack of country-level estimates for the parts of the world where people are most affected by bacterial infections has been apparent,” said Authia Gray, study co-author and a researcher at IHME.
“These new data can be used as a guide to help address the disproportionately high burden of bacterial infections in lower-middle-income countries and can ultimately help save lives and prevent people from losing years of their lives due to to a disease,” he said. .
The reduction of bacterial infections must become a global public health priority, underlines the study, considering that, in order to reduce the burden of the diseases they cause, it is essential to build stronger health systems, with greater laboratory capacity for diagnosis, the application of control measures and the optimization of the use of antibiotics.
“Effective antimicrobials exist for all 33 bacteria investigated,” it says, adding that “much of the disproportionately high (infection) burden in lower-middle-income countries can be attributed to inadequate access to effective antimicrobials, weak health systems, and a insufficient care. prevention programs”.
For researchers, “essential prevention strategies” include “improved access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities, increased vaccination rates, development of new vaccines”, and it is also important to improve access to the right antibiotic for each infection.
For bacteria for which there is no vaccine, their development is crucial, they insist, also stressing the importance of developing new and effective antibiotics to deal with “the growing threat” of antimicrobial resistance and bacterial infections in general.
Source: TSF
