In the European Union, tens of thousands of people die each year from infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antibiotic supplies are also at a standstill. Experts say the situation is alarming.
"We are on the way to losing the achievements of modern medicine and going back to the time before the discovery of penicillin," said the president of the Paul-Ehrlich Society for the Treatment of Infections (PEG) Matijas Plec.
The effectiveness of antibiotics is decreasing, Plec added. Antibiotics should therefore be used sparingly, and it is necessary to constantly develop new drugs that destroy the resistance of bacteria.
According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), 35.000 people die every year in the EU from infections caused by bacteria resistant to antibiotics.
Antibiotics, according to the Robert Koch Institute, do not kill all bacteria. The resistant ones survive and continue to reproduce. The emergence of resistance cannot be prevented, but only slowed down, according to the institute.
Since 2017, only 12 new antibiotics have been approved, and 10 belong to classes to which resistance mechanisms have already developed, according to PEG data.
The problem is that pharmaceutical companies are increasingly abandoning the production of antibiotics because it is not profitable for them. The German government should subsidize them sooner, experts appeal.
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