Antibiotic Use Only Weakly Linked to Bacterial Resistance: Study Finds
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According to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS, antibiotic resistance generally stabilizes over time. This issue poses a significant public health threat, playing a role in an estimated 5 million deaths annually. Gaining insight into long-term resistance trends can aid public health researchers in tracking and understanding drug resistance, as well as assessing the effectiveness of efforts to combat it.
In this study, researchers analyzed drug resistance in more than 3 million bacterial samples collected across 30 countries in Europe from 1998 to 2019. Samples encompassed eight bacteria species important to public health, including Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Klebsiella pneumoniae. They found that while antibiotic resistance initially rises in response to antibiotic use, it does not rise indefinitely. Instead, resistance rates reached an equilibrium over the 20-year period in most species.
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