In 2023 they will die in Spain 23,303 people are the cause of multi-resistant bacteria; due to pathogens that do not respond to available antibiotics. This is estimated by a study carried out by the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC) presented this Monday in Madrid, which highlights that the number of deaths related to antimicrobial resistance “is 20 times higher than the number of people killed in traffic accidents”. In Spain, in 2022, a total of 1,145 people died on the road, according to data from the DGT.”
“Our objective is that these data serve to raise greater and better awareness among citizens and professionals about a formidable problem that has a very important impact on health,” he said. Jose Miguel Cisneroshead of the Infectious Diseases service at the Virgen del Rocío Hospital in Seville and coordinator of the aforementioned study during its presentation, within the framework of the conference ‘Fight against resistance: institutional, professional and patient perspectives’.
Cisneros has stressed that, according to the estimates of the research, called ‘SEIMC-BMR 2023’ and in which 260 researchers from 130 Spanish hospitals have participated, in our country they will be produced throughout this year 159,174 bacterial infections that do not respond to treatments for having developed resistance mechanisms against its action.
Among these ‘superbugs’ stands out ‘Escherichia coli producer of extended-spectrum beta-lactamases’, a pathogen causing 25% of the cases studied in this research.
According to the work data, urinary infection is the most frequent problem associated with multi-resistance while pneumonia is the infection that causes the highest mortality. 45% of multidrug-resistant infections occurred in the hospital settingindicates the research, which also estimates the number of years of life lost due to these pathogens at 189,535.