War on superbugs downsized

Deadly “superbugs” resistant to antibiotics are spreading but efforts to protect New Zealanders have been cut back because of a lack of funding.

Documents obtained by the Herald show a five-year “antimicrobial resistance action plan” floundered amid a $10 million a year funding shortfall. Milestones were missed and it has now been scaled down.

The rise of micro-organisms that have become resistant to drugs could make common infections untreatable, and surgery and medical treatments increasingly unsafe. They also pose a huge threat to agriculture, and New Zealand industry is worried climate change could worsen the problem.

Already, about 700,000 people worldwide die each year because of drug-resistant infections.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that toll could rise to 10 million within 30 years, as poor sanitary conditions and the misuse of antibiotics given to people and animals turbo-charges the threat.

There have been recent nonfatal cases at Middlemore Hospital’s burns unit and the neonatal wing of Wellington Hospital.

In August 2017 the Nationalled Government launched the landmark antimicrobial resistance action plan, with key milestones including improving infection control and public education. Progress is reported to the WHO, but problems emerged almost immediately.

“We are already scaling back

the AMR action plan after its first year of implementation and we are falling behind our international commitments,” officials told Health Minister David Clark in October.

Time had mostly been spent on trying to co-ordinate the various agencies involved, the briefing noted, and other critical activities have been scaled back or pushed to outlying years “which will negatively impact on overall delivery of the action plan”. Those included a survey on susceptible bacteria in animals, now over three years rather than in the first year.

In the same briefings, officials repeatedly stressed the risk posed by antimicrobial resistance.

“If we do not successfully address this threat now, there are likely to be wide-ranging impacts for New Zealand. The ability to treat infections in humans, animals and in the wider agriculture sectors will affect all New Zealanders, but the most vulnerable will be Maori and Pacific peoples, children, the health-impaired and the elderly.

“Within the primary industries sector, there is also increasing concern regarding the potential interplay between climate change impacts and AMR. Rising temperature results in an increase in the prevalence of certain diseases, both in animals and plants.”

The action plan is funded from within existing budgets of the Ministry of Health and Ministry for Primary Industries. Both agencies were soon making clear $10m a year was needed “to ensure effective implementation”.

In March Clark was told the plan had been “refined” to “deliverables that are achievable within existing resources”.