Reacción a "Reactions: one in eight deaths in 2019 were linked to bacterial infections"

The study published this November in the Lancet has its antecedent in a previous one published in January this year, which highlighted the importance of infections caused by multi-antibiotic resistant bacteria in the mortality rate worldwide during 2019, finding that approximately 5 million deaths could be attributed to infections caused by multi-antibiotic resistant bacteria. 

In the present study, the authors do not consider antibiotic resistance per se, but rather the total number of deaths associated with infections during 2019, relating them to 33 different pathogens. The study reports that, of 13.7 million infection-related deaths, 7.7 million were attributable to the 33 pathogens studied (regardless of whether they were resistant or susceptible to antibiotics) and, most notably, approximately 50% of these were caused by just five pathogens: Staphylococcus aureus (1.1 million deaths), Escherichia coli (950. 000), Streptococcus pneumoniae (829,000), Klebsiella pneumoniae (790,000) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (559,000). 

Apart from the limitations that the statistical treatment of the data may introduce, the present study allows us to reflect on some current questions about the consideration that our society gives to infections and the resources devoted to fighting some of them. For example, the first two pathogens alone (S. aureus and E. coli) caused far more deaths than AIDS in 2019 (864,000), but the financial resources devoted to fighting the latter disease were almost 50 times greater than those devoted to controlling E. coli infections. The data presented in this study can help redefine priorities when it comes to infection control. Appropriate antibiotic use, the availability of effective antibiotics in many countries, and effective vaccine development strategies can help reduce mortality from infections caused by these five pathogens (as well as all others). 

Both the first study published in the Lancet in January this year and this second one published in November should serve to raise awareness among national and international research funding agencies to urgently establish priority programmes to fund research projects that can generate tools and strategies to efficiently combat infections (both those caused by antibiotic-sensitive and antibiotic-resistant bacteria), with a special emphasis on the pathogens referred to in this second study.