{"id":32889,"date":"2017-02-28T10:46:47","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T10:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/who-says-new-drugs-urgently-needed-to-fight\/"},"modified":"2017-02-28T10:49:59","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T10:49:59","slug":"who-says-new-drugs-urgently-needed-to-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/who-says-new-drugs-urgently-needed-to-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"WHO says new drugs urgently needed to fight superbugs"},"content":{"rendered":"

{As many as 10 million deaths a year could occur from drug resistant infections without new antibiotics, doctor warns.}<\/p>\n

New antibiotics must be developed urgently to fight a dozen dangerous families of bacteria, the World Health Organization says, describing these “priority pathogens” as the greatest threat to human health. <\/p>\n

Many of these bacteria have already evolved into deadly superbugs that are resistant to many antibiotics, the United Nations health agency said on Monday.<\/p>\n

The bugs “have built-in abilities to find new ways to resist treatment” and can also pass on genetic material that allows other bacteria to become drug-resistant, it added.<\/p>\n

Dr Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, said even people with healthy immune systems are now vulnerable. <\/p>\n

“It turns out that just about every country on the planet now has a problem with what we call AMR – antimicrobial resistance,” Hotez told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

“This is a real wake-up call that we have three superbugs that seem to be widely resistant to antibiotics and we’re running out of tools to combat them.”<\/p>\n

The WHO’s assistant director-general for health systems and innovation, Marie-Paule Kieny, said it was up to governments to put in place policies to boost investment in research and development if new drugs are to be found in time.<\/p>\n

“Just when resistance to antibiotics is reaching alarming proportions, the pipeline is practically dry,” she told reporters in a telephone briefing.<\/p>\n

“If we leave it to market forces alone, the new antibiotics we most urgently need are not going to be developed in time.”<\/p>\n

In recent decades, drug-resistant bacteria, such as Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) or Clostridium difficile, have become a global health threat. Superbug strains of infections such as tuberculosis and gonorrhea are already untreatable.<\/p>\n

WHO has previously warned that many antibiotics could become redundant this century, leaving patients exposed to deadly infections and threatening the future of medicine.<\/p>\n

The “priority pathogens” list has three rankings – critical, high and medium – according to how urgently new antibiotics are needed.<\/p>\n

The critical group includes multidrug-resistant bacteria that pose a particular threat in hospitals, nursing homes, and other care facilities.<\/p>\n

These include Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas and various Enterobacteriaceae that can cause often deadly infections such as pneumonia and septicemia.<\/p>\n

“These bacteria are responsible for severe infections and high mortality rates,” Kieny said.<\/p>\n

“While these bacteria are not widespread and do not generally affect healthy people, the burden for patients is now alarming and new effective therapies are imperative.”<\/p>\n

The second and third tiers contain other increasingly drug-resistant bacteria that cause more common diseases such as gonorrhea and food poisoning caused by salmonella.<\/p>\n

WHO said the list is intended to spur governments to put in place policies that incentivise basic and advanced research and development.<\/p>\n

Tim Jinks, head of drug resistant infections at the Wellcome Trust global health charity, said that within a generation there could be up to 10 million deaths a year from drug resistant infections without new antibiotics. He said the list would be an important tool to steer research.<\/p>\n

“Without new medicines to treat deadly infection, lifesaving treatments like chemotherapy and organ transplant, and routine operations like caesareans and hip replacements will be potentially fatal,” Jinks said.<\/p>\n

\"WHO<\/figure>\n

Source:Al Jazeera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{As many as 10 million deaths a year could occur from drug resistant infections without new antibiotics, doctor warns.} New antibiotics must be developed urgently to fight a dozen dangerous families of bacteria, the World Health Organization says, describing these “priority pathogens” as the greatest threat to human health. Many of these bacteria have already […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-32889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32889"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=32889"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=32889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}