‘Silent Pandemic’: Antimicrobial Resistance Is Increasingly Threatening to Canadians, Experts Say – National

Rachel Sears was only 17 when a simple scar on her face turned into a horribly painful “superbug” overnight.

She worked as a cashier at a grocery store, where doctors told her she probably picked up antibiotic-resistant bacteria from cash handled by infected people.

She said she likely scratched or simply rubbed the wound on her forehead, which was fine and inadvertently infected it.

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh, I have a weird bulge,’ and I went to bed like nothing,” Sears said, recalling the hours after the shift.

“When I woke up the next morning it was so swollen. It was huge.

She went to the hospital immediately, and after 12 hours doctors determined it was methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and was given intravenous antibiotics, which are used for infections resistant to oral antibiotics. I got

Sears, now 32, said the experience was “traumatic” because she was still a teenager at the time.

“My mother was like, ‘What’s wrong? This is my baby. These are like big, scary words,'” she recalled.

“Then I google and think, ‘What if it doesn’t work? What if the antibiotics didn’t work? Then what?’ I have,” she said.

“So I was scared.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the last time she had an antibiotic-resistant infection.

Sears said he contracted at least two staphylococcal infections over the next few years from regular abrasions, including shaving cuts. Then, a year after her son was born, she was diagnosed with the intestinal super her-bug Clostridioides difficile, better known as C. difficile.

Eventually, she turned to a naturopathic doctor for help. Her health has improved significantly as a result, she says.

“I can’t help but think it was caused by the superbug first and then the antibiotics,” she said.

The growing threat of so-called superbugs, or antibiotic-resistant infections, is just one of many concerns that some experts describe as a dangerous global rise in antimicrobial resistance (AMR). . Parasites become unresponsive to antibacterial agents such as antibiotics, fungicides, antivirals, and parasiticides.

While it may not receive regular attention from the public or media, concern over this growing phenomenon has become so widespread that it has been dubbed a “silent pandemic” that is killing millions each year. is included. disease specialist.

A large group of researchers examining the burden of AMR worldwide in 2019 estimated that bacterial antimicrobial resistance killed an estimated 1.27 million people that year. lancet.

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Susan Poutanen, M.D., a medical microbiologist and infectious disease physician at the University Health Network and Sinai Health, says an estimated 14,000 deaths in Canada each year are linked in some way to antibiotic resistance.

“This is like an unrecognized, silent, or silent pandemic,” Puttanen said.

“Each year, the resistance increases, but it doesn’t look the same as facing problems like cancer, heart attacks, and strokes.

This lack of public awareness not only means that Canadians are ignorant of the threat of AMR, but that investment and research into solutions is not a priority, she added. rice field.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the main cause of antimicrobial resistance is the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in both human disease control and industrial agriculture and food production.

And the COVID-19 pandemic will only exacerbate the problem of antibiotic overprescription and overuse, experts say.

Early in the outbreak, many patients hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 were given antibiotics even when no bacterial infection was evident, Poutanen said.

She pointed out that antibiotics are not effective against viruses and should only be used in cases of bacterial infections.

“From the clinician’s best judgment, when someone presents what is most likely to be a viral illness, it is still often asked, ‘What if? It may not be a reaction to the administration of antibiotics,” she said.

“Since some of that data was shared with clinicians, very few[COVID-19patients]have a bacterial infection, and some of the empirical choices to use antibiotics have been confirmed. We have certainly learned that it has improved to

But now, the surge in respiratory illnesses across Canada is likely driving “increased use and overuse” of antibiotics, which will only increase concern and prevalence of drug resistance, she added. rice field.

Abuse of antibiotics in Canada is not limited to medicine. Growers of staple crops such as citrus and rice often make heavy use of antimicrobial sprays. Antibiotics are often used as growth promoters and are aggressively administered to prevent infection in livestock. Antifungal agents used in the tulip industry and other crops also contribute to increased resistance to fungal infections, says Dr. John Conley. Medical School at the University of Calgary who has worked in the field of antimicrobial resistance for the past 25 years.

“We are seeing massive overuse of antibiotics, and the rate of resistant strains continues to rise,” he said.

In Canada, for example, about 26% of infections that occur are resistant to first-line antibiotics, he noted. Experts in the field predict that this resistance could grow exponentially over the next few years, with 40-100 resistance to first-line antibiotics and antifungals by 2050. Some estimates put it at 10%, says Conly.

“That’s a big concern.”

That is why experts and leaders around the world, with the help of WHO, are trying to shed light on this issue.

Last week, WHO held its third global High-Level Ministerial Conference on Antimicrobial Resistance and produced a manifesto setting out three global goals to tackle this challenge.

Goals include: By 2030, reduce the total amount of antimicrobials used in the agri-food system by at least 30-50%. End the use of medically significant antimicrobials to promote animal growth. And by 2030, a specific category of 48 antibiotics (known as “access group antibiotics”) that are affordable, safe and have a low AMR risk for him will be the global antibiotic for humans. Make it at least 60% of your consumption.

Conly said faster diagnostics in the clinic (to reduce antibiotic over-testing and preventative prescriptions) and digital guidelines for antibiotic use in healthcare will also help slow the progression of antibiotic resistance. says.

Ultimately, unless more is done to address this problem, more superbugs will spread more widely, leading to more preventable illnesses and deaths in Canada and around the world.

“It’s like there’s a tsunami going on, but it’s so far out in the ocean that you can’t see it,” Conley said. “And then one day it will pop up out of the blue and say, ‘Didn’t you see this coming?'”