Antibiotic resistance: 35,000 US citizens die every year from "super germs"

"Some miracle drugs are no longer causing miracles," says the US health agency CDC, released Wednesday. In the US, about 35,000 people die each year from antibiotic-resistant germs.

Altogether there are 2.8 million infections by pathogens, which can not be killed even with modern antibiotics, so the CDC. The number is about twice the previously assumed number of victims. Only the most dangerous intestinal bacterium, "Clostridioides difficile", is responsible for 12,800 deaths.

While the number of deaths in hospitals - a haven for resistant agents ("superbugs") - has declined, cases outside clinics have increased

The World Health Organization warned in June against a worldwide increase in antibiotic resistance. This threatens to nullify 100 years of medical progress. Doctors talk about antibiotic resistance when patients do not respond to an antibiotic, that is, if the pathogenic germs are not destroyed by the antibiotic.

Problem also known in Germany

Resistance can develop if some pathogens survive using antibiotics. They could then resist all antibiotics that once worked against them. For patients who are affected by them, then there is often little chance of recovery.

In Germany too, experts in hospital patients are increasingly detecting germs that are resistant to important reserve antibiotics. These antibiotics are used when the traditional remedies have already failed.

In 2017, the experts at the National Reference Center for Gram-negative Pathogens (NRZ) of the Ruhr University Bochum found a so-called carbapenemase in almost every third suspected sample. These are enzymes produced by the bacteria which, among other things, render reserve antibiotics from the group of carbapenems ineffective.