A new World Health Organization (WHO) report has revealed that some common bacteria are showing higher levels of resistance to antibiotics, which could put "millions of lives at risk".
The WHO research surveyed people in over 80 countries and found a heightened resistance to antibiotics from common bacterial infections.
In analyses of antimicrobial resistance, the report found high levels — over 50 per cent — in bacteria that frequently cause bloodstream infections, mainly in hospitals.
Those life-threatening infections need treatment with last-resort antibiotics, but 8 per cent of bloodstream infections caused by one bacterium, Klebsiella pneumoniae, were reported as being resistant to medication, increasing the risk of death.
More common bacterial infections also showed a higher resistance to antibiotics.
One example, Neisseria gonorrhoea, the bacterium that causes gonorrhoea, showed a 60 per cent resistance to the most-used oral antibacterials.
The same goes for E. coli, which according to Johns Hopkins Medicine is a very common cause of urinary tract infections (UTIs).
Over 20 per cent of E. coli cases showed resistance to first and second-line treatments.
"Antimicrobial resistance undermines modern medicine and puts millions of lives at risk," said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
"To truly understand the extent of the global threat and mount an effective public health response to AMR [antimicrobial resistance], we must scale up microbiology testing and provide quality-assured data across all countries, not just wealthier ones," he said.
Despite stating that most resistance trends remaining stable in the past four years, the WHO said bloodstream infections due to E. coli, salmonella, and resistant gonorrhoea increased by at least 15 per cent between 2017 and 2020.
The WHO called for more research to identify why there is an increase in bacterial resistance, and to what extent it might be related to raised hospitalisations and increased antibiotic treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic.
