Antibiotic Resistance Still a Major Public Health Threat

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Other infections are targeting younger people and moving from hospitals into the community and back into hospitals.

Clostridium difficile, a common hospital infection, for instance, is now hitting people who have not been in the hospital. These patients have a median age of 53, versus a median age of 70 in hospitals, said Dr. Ghinwa Dumyati, lead author of this study and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

It's not clear exactly where these community cases are coming from, but many of the people, although healthy, were taking antibiotics, suggesting that the medications "are still an important factor in the development of C. difficile in the community," Dumyati said.

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Similarly, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is causing severe illness in younger, healthy people, although the infections are not resulting in either death or long hospital stays, according to another study. The fact that the patients were younger and healthier may have decreased the risk of death," said study author Dr. Fernanda Lessa, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

MRSA infections in emergency rooms have increased 211 percent between 2000 and 2008, another study found. The incidence in multi-drug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, a gram-negative bacteria, is also on the rise, largely in the hospital, said researchers from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

On the more positive side, a meta-analysis of studies on extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis found that newer versions of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones did seem to help people with this infection.

These findings are ironic, said Dr. Neil Fishman, chair of the IDSA Antimicrobial Resistance Work Group and director of the Antimicrobial Management Program for the University of Pennsylvania Health System. "Fluoroquinolones have been implicated in causing a lot of problems with resistance and, to some extent, fluoroquinolones are the schoolyard bully of resistance," he said. Proper "stewardship," or prudent use of antibiotics would help curb this trend, he added.

Experts at the teleconference also expressed hope that the attention being focused on H1N1 (swine) flu right now could act as a "wedge" issue, to further spotlight the antibiotic problem. For the moment, however, H1N1 is eclipsing the resistance issue, even though many people succumbing to H1N1 also end up with bacterial infections.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on antibiotic resistance.

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