Thirty three bacteria led to death of about 7.7 million deaths across the world, which comprises 13.6 per cent of all global deaths and 56.2 per cent of all sepsis-related deaths in 2019, according to the latest Lancet study.
The Five leading pathogens—Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa—were responsible for 54·9% of deaths, the report said.
The researchers also claimed that this was the first study to present global comprehensive estimates of deaths associated with 33 bacterial pathogens across 11 major infectious syndromes
The sub-Saharan Africa super-region recorded the highest casualty with 230 deaths (185–285) per 100 000 population, and the high-income super-region recorded the lowest with 52·2 deaths per 100 000 population.
LEADERS
S aureus was the leading bacterial cause of death in 135 countries and was also associated with the most deaths in individuals older than 15 years, globally. Among children younger than 5 years, S pneumoniae was the pathogen associated with the most deaths, the report said.
Of the bacteria estimated, Morganella spp, Providencia spp, and Neisseria gonorrhoeae had the fewest associated deaths.
The study also noted that more than six million deaths occurred as a result of three bacterial infectious syndromes, with lower respiratory infections and bloodstream infections each causing more than two million deaths and peritoneal and intra-abdominal infections causing more than one million deaths.
They used methods from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and (GBD) 2019, in addition to a subset of the input data described in the Global Burden of Antimicrobial Resistance 2019 study.
This study included 343 million individual records or isolates covering 11,361 study-location years.
PREVENTION
Infection prevention is the foundation to reducing the burden of infections. The study says
- Infection prevention broadly includes in-hospital programmes aimed at reducing hospital-acquired infection and community programmes that focus on health education, management of malnutrition
- vaccination can have a substantial effect on the burden of bacterial infections through a number of routes
- uptake of vaccination for non-bacterial infections like influenza, where bacterial superinfection is a common complication, can also reduce the burden of bacterial infections
- vaccine development is crucial for bacteria for which no vaccine exists, and these estimates could help set vaccine development priorities
- vaccine development is crucial for bacteria for which no vaccine exists, and these estimates could help set vaccine development priorities
- a strategic approach and ample investment in the development of new and effective antibiotics are essential to face the increasing threat posed by bacterial antimicrobial resistance and bacterial infections in general
