AMR risk surged after pandemic: study
NEW DELHI : The number of reported antimicrobial resistance (AMR) cases spiked more than 4.5 times from 25,833 in 2017 to 119,686 till December last year, a report by the health ministry showed. AMR is recognized by the World Health Organization as one of the top 10 global public health threats. The data indicated a rise in such resistance in India as antibiotics have started to fail in patients, resulting in a public health threat.
Alarmingly, the indiscriminate use of antibiotics during the covid-19 pandemic increased the risk of AMR. The report said E. coli was the most common bacteria, accounting for 33% of AMR cases in 2022.
The majority of the reported cases taken were from urine samples (43%). The data has been generated by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) as a part of an annual AMR surveillance exercise. The report covers 2022 and includes data from 36 medical colleges in 27 States/UTs among different groups of admitted patients, including those visiting OPDs and emergency departments.
Almost a third of the patients were 36-60 years old but some patients were as young as under five years of age. About 66% of antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) data was reported from the reproductive age group of 15-64. “Over the past four years, there has been a gradual increase in the number of reported isolates, rising from 25,833 in 2017 to 119,686 during the current data reporting period.
Escherichia coli (E. coli) remains the most commonly isolated pathogen, accounting for 33% of the AMR surveillance data in 2022 followed by followed by Klebsiella species (20%), S. aureus (15%), Pseudomonas species (12%), Acinetobacter species (10%) Enterococcus species (9%) and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi and
. Read more on livemint.com
