Drug-resistant superbugs are killing thousands of Americans — here's what you need to know about them
An alarming report from federal health officials found that drug-resistant"superbugs" are infecting millions of Americans and killing thousands each year.
Drug-resistant bugs are in every U.S. state and around the globe, and they now cause nearly twice as many deaths as they did when the CDC reported on it in 2013. What is a superbug and is there a treatment?Superbugs are bacteria or fungi that are resistant to antibiotics or antifungals, says Dr. Alyssa Letourneau, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Antimicrobial Stewardship Program.
"If we take an antibiotic and we put it with bacterium, it's pretty easy to select resistance. It's really a natural process," says Dr. Robin Patel, president of American Society for Microbiology and a doctor at the Mayo Clinic.If a bug resists the narrow-spectrum drug used to treat it, doctors can use broad-spectrum antibiotics.
Among the urgent threats is Candida auris, a drug-resistant fungus that began spreading among hospital and nursing home patients in the United States in 2015. These resistances can develop within the bacteria people have in their bodies, and the bacteria can then spread from person to person, via animals and food or through the environment.
People don't necessarily know they have a superbug, she says. They come in with a set of symptoms and the doctor must figure out their risk for a superbug. The challenge is an issue of time, she says. The sooner a patient starts on a treatment, the better their chances are. But starting a patient on a broad-spectrum drug when they may not need it can contribute unnecessarily to antibiotic resistance, Letourneau says.
There are also a number of new treatment options being developed still in their early stages. One option could be to use a virus to infect and kill a bacteria, Letourneau says.
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