The UN takes on superbugs

The following is an excerpt from an editorial in the New York Times:

Tuberculosis. Malaria. Syphilis. Gonorrhea. The microbes that cause these diseases are increasingly resistant, and sometimes even impervious, to antibiotics that worked in the past. Last week, amid other pressing business, 193 nations at the UN General Assembly signed a declaration summoning each of them to a war against a powerful and resourceful enemy: superbugs that have learned to evade science’s last remaining defences.

These bacteria, viruses and other microbes are responsible for 700,000 deaths a year, according to a 2014 British study. Given current trends, that number is likely to rise.

A successful counterattack will involve multiple strategies. Doctors need to be instructed in the dangers of prescribing antibiotics for viral flus and other common infections for which they are largely useless.

In addition, doctors and nurses need to take practices such as hand washing and equipment sterilization much more seriously to reduce widespread drug-resistant infections in hospitals. Consumers must make sure they and their children are vaccinated, which helps prevent infections in the first place.

More than 70 per cent of the antibiotics used in the United States are given to livestock. Because the indiscriminate use of drugs in animals can destroy the drugs’ effectiveness for humans, the Food and Drug Administration has issued regulations that it says will reduce antibiotic use in livestock.

Increasing the supply of new drugs and vaccines is another challenge. Many companies find it more profitable to produce drugs for cancer and other chronic diseases that patients battle for months or years at a time.

Governments could also offer incentives to companies that develop new vaccines and antibiotics, and they could contractually agree to buy medicines to assure companies that they will have a market for their products.