WHO releases list of superbugs

THE World Health Organisation announced its first list of antibiotic-resistant “priority pathogens” this week, detailing 12 families of bacteria that agency experts say pose the greatest threat to human health.

The list is prioritised by the urgency of the need for new antibiotics. The purpose is to guide and promote research and development of new drugs, officials said. Most of the pathogens are among the nearly two dozen antibioticresistant microbes that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned in a 2013 report could cause potentially catastrophic consequences if the US didn’t act quickly to combat the growing threat.

“This list is not meant to scare people about new superbugs,” said MariePaul Kieny, an assistant director-general at WHO. “It’s intended to signal research and development priorities to address urgent public health threats.” Superbugs that are considered the highest priority are responsible for severe infections and high mortality rates, especially among hospitalised patients, as well as transplant recipients and people undergoing chemotherapy.

There have been no new classes of antibiotics discovered that have made it to market since 1984, according to the Pew Charitable Trust’s antibiotic-resistance project. And there aren’t enough drugs in the pipeline to meet future needs, said Allan Coukell, senior director of health programmes at Pew.

Of the 40 antibiotics in clinical development in the US, “fewer than half even have the potential to treat the pathogens identified by WHO”, he said. – The Washington Post