Austria: 2 German skiers die in Tyrol

Two Germans have died in skiing accidents in the Alpine region of Tyrol. The area, well known for its winter sports, is a popular spot for German tourists at this time of year.

A 79-year-old man was killed Monday when he went over the edge of the marked slope in Lermoos, in the Reutte district of Austria.

Two nearby skiers saw the man after he tumbled down the hill and immediately called emergency services, but he was found dead at the scene by a medic.

Read more: Austrian skier buried under avalanche for 5 hours survives

Another accident in Tux

About 100 kilometers (60 miles) away, in Tux, a 58-yearold man also died in a fall on Monday, though less was known about the circumstances surrounding the accident.

According to some reports, the man fell after hitting a snowcovered rock, though police said they were seeking more evidence to find the exact cause of death.

The Tyrol region, covering parts of northern Italy and western Austria, is well known for its winter sports and is a popular spot for German tourists at this time of year. jsi/cmk (dpa, AFP)

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funk (a public radio and television broadcaster based in Hamburg) that the company is no longer researching classic antibiotics. However, they are still working on antibacterial vaccinations.

"If companies that have invested a lot in research and development stop investing, we don’t have products that could combat resistance and we don’t have replacement products for those that are not effective anymore," said Iyer.

Currently, these and some smaller pharmaceutical companies have a total of 54 drugs in clinical development to fight fungal or bacterial infections. Of these, 51 are far enough along in the process that they are regarded as safe and are, or have been, tested in phase II studies on humans.

According to the report, however, this is still too little.

Read more: 90 years after penicillin: Artilysin could replace antibiotics

In the hands of the few Similar to the situation in R&D, the production of antibiotics is facing diminishing interest. If too few companies are involved, the entire drug development and supply chain can be jeopardized, particularly in poorer regions of the world.

"The majority of the companies we’ve looked at are extremely big manufacturers," said

Iyer. "Some of them are responsible for almost 200 products and they bring them all over the world. If they change course and don’t want to produce these antibiotics anymore, then people won’t have access to it here in Europe, and in low and middle income countries."

This danger also exists, by the way, if a company goes bankrupt.

Access

While medical professionals are concerned about antibioticresistant germs, a much bigger problem is that most people have no access to the existing antibiotics that they need. As a result, more people around the world die from not getting the right medicine than from antibiotic-resistant germs.

The Access to Medicine Foundation has identified 102 countries in the world as having a problematic lack of access, many of them being low or middleincome nations. Better access to medicines is urgently needed in these places.

Only three of the 13 patented novel antibiotics included in the AMRB 2020 report are available in more than ten of these countries.

"Since even already established antibiotics are not available in countries with low and medium incomes, there is little chance that new antibiotics will reach the people who need them there," explained Iyer.

For example, manufacturers only supply 14 out of 30 established antibiotics to low-income countries.

Self-restricting marketing At least as important as the development of new antibiotics is the need to discourage doctors from the excessive use of conventional antibiotics. It is important to avoid the development of resistance from the outset.

"What we have been trying to do is make sure that companies take their responsibility about sales and promotion seriously by making sure there is no over-selling and over-prescription," said Iyer.

And that has obviously worked. More and more of them are raising awareness of the problem among doctors and healthcare professionals. Ten companies no longer pay premiums to their salespeople for higher sales figures or they no longer employ salespeople at all. Only five pharmaceutical companies adhered to this principle, as recently as 2018.

Self-imposed restrictions also made doctors more reluctant to prescribe such drugs.

More transparency and better market access

Some companies have started to share knowledge about resistance with clinicians and scientists. For example, Pfitzer has published the raw data from its in-house control program in a freely accessible register.

The introduction of new active substances into the market has also improved slightly over the last few years. For example, the pharmaceutical companies researching and producing new drugs have now drawn up market launch plans for as many as 55% of the 51 newly developed drugs that have been tested in phase II.

Despite this progress, Iyer remains skeptical.

"We have to understand that since resistance comes quite quickly and since these companies are not interested in antibiotic development, in the long runb if there is no economic potential, if there is no market potential, I think we are at risk that we cannot preserve what little [research and development] we have," she said.

Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.