World Hot Topics
Blog
Drugs
urgently needed to fight superbugs.
New
antibiotics need to be developed urgently to combat 12 families of bacteria,
the World Health Organization says, describing these "priority
pathogens" as the greatest threats to human health.
The United National
health agency said many of these bacteria have already evolved into deadly
superbugs that are resistant to many antibiotics.
The bugs
"have built-in abilities to find new ways to resist treatment" the
WHO said, and can also pass on genetic material that allows other bacteria to
become drug-resistant.
Governments need
to invest in research and development (R&D)if new drugs are to be found in
time, because market forces cannot be relied upon to boost the funds needed to
fight the bugs, it said.
"Antibiotic
resistance is growing, and we are fast running out of treatment options,"
the WHO's assistant director-general for health systems and innovation,
Marie-Paule Kieny, said.
"If we
leave it to market forces alone, the new antibiotics we most urgently need are
not going to be developed in time."
World
Hot Topics Blog
In recent
decades, drug-resistant bacteria, such as Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) or
Clostridium difficile, have become a global health threat, while superbug
strains of infections such as tuberculosis and gonorrhoea are now untreatable.
The WHO has
previously warned that many antibiotics could become totally redundant this
century, leaving patients exposed to deadly infections and threatening the
future of medicine.
The
"priority pathogens" list published by the WHO on Monday has three
rankings - critical, high and medium - according to how urgently new
antibiotics are needed.
The critical group includes multidrug-resistant bacteria that pose a particular
threat in hospitals, nursing homes, and other care facilities. These include
Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas and various Enterobacteriaceae that can cause severe
and often deadly infections such as pneumonia and septicaemia. The second and
third tiers contain other increasingly drug-resistant bacteria that cause more
common diseases such as gonorrhoea and food poisoning caused by salmonella.
The WHO said the
list is intended to spur governments to put in place policies that incentivise
basic and advanced R&D.
This World Hot Topics Blog
is Originally from here :
http://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/drugs-urgently-needed-to-fight-superbugs/news-story/c6d76d67cecec016891ec361eabf6e39