CONNECT WITH US
Tech

Tech

Superbugs Are Winning—and They’re Now Killing 50,000 Americans a Year

Gizmodo - Tech logo

Published on

Add as a preferred source on Google
Superbugs Are Winning—and They’re Now Killing 50,000 Americans a Year

Drug-resistant bacteria and other microbes are a serious and growing public health threat. Data out today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quantifies the annual toll of these superbugs, and it’s not looking good.

On Tuesday, the CDC released the latest version of its Antimicrobial Resistance (AR) Threats Report. The agency estimates that roughly 10 million infections and more than 50,000 deaths in the United States are now caused by drug-resistant bacteria and fungi every year—estimates well above the previous figures released in 2019. Though there has been some success at curbing certain drug-resistant infections, substantially more progress is needed to prevent the approaching antimicrobial apocalypse, outside experts say.

“These numbers are alarming by any measure but are particularly sobering when infectious diseases physicians connect real patients with these statistics in their everyday experience,” said Wendy Armstrong, a clinician and president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, in a statement provided to Gizmodo.

The CDC released its first iteration of the AR Threats Report in 2013. In 2019, it released a more extensive tally focusing on 18 drug-resistant microbes that were especially urgent or serious, including the emerging fungus Candida auris (since renamed Candidozyma auris). That report estimated around 2.8 million infections and 35,000 deaths were caused by drug-resistant germs every year. In 2024, the CDC published another report that singled out drug-resistant germs commonly found in healthcare settings, but this newest report is the most comprehensive released since 2019.

S. annually, the CDC found. Roughly 40,000 of these deaths are linked to health care-associated infections; these infections also led to almost $12 billion in health care costs.


Source link
Related Topics:Tech

Disclaimer

We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We TheMorningPulse.fyi want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It's possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.