05 November 2023 , 15:26
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Youngsters suffering from pneumonia and sepsis are dying due to increased resistance to antibiotics, new research reveals.
The study, carried out by the University of Sydney, found that many antibiotics were less than 50 per cent effective in treating infections such as pneumonia, sepsis and meningitis in babies and children. The researchers highlighted that thousands of children die unnecessarily each year due to antibiotic resistance.
They discovered that one antibiotic, ceftriaxone, only helps in one out of three cases of sepsis in newborns with meningitis, despite being widely prescribed in Australia. Despite their failing effectiveness, many of these antibiotics are still recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
This has led the research team to call for an "urgent" update to the guidelines. The last parameters were set by WHO in 2013, but since then, the global health body has declared antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as one of the top 10 public health threats to humanity.
The experts argue that AMR affects children more severely than adults, as new antibiotics are less likely to be tested on and made available to youngsters. South East Asia and the Pacific regions, including neighbouring Indonesia and Philippines, are the most seriously affected.
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Globally, approximately 570,000 newborns die from sepsis each year many of these deaths are due to antibiotics failing to treat resistant bacteria. Dr Phoebe Williams, the lead author from the university's School of Public Health, warned that the study should serve as a global wake-up call.
She emphasised the need for more funding to explore antibiotic treatments for children. She said: "We are not immune to this problem - the burden of anti-microbial resistance is on our doorstep."
"Antibiotic resistance is rising more rapidly than we realise," Dr Williams added. She stressed the urgent need for new solutions to halt invasive multidrug-resistant infections and prevent the unnecessary deaths of thousands of children each year, saying: "Antibiotic clinical focuses on adults and too often children and newborns are left out. That means we have very limited options and data for new treatments."
Despite its inefficacy, ceftriaxone is widely used in Australia to treat pneumonia and urinary tract infections in children. Another antibiotic, gentamicin, was found likely to help treat fewer than half of all childhood sepsis and meningitis cases. Gentamicin is commonly prescribed with aminopenicillins, a drug also found to be not very effective in combating bloodstream infections in babies and kids.
Currently, Dr Williams is investigating an old antibiotic, Fosfomycin, as a potential temporary solution to treat multi-drug resistant urinary tract infections in Australia's children. The review of how antibiotics work on kids with common infections, published in Lancet South East Asia, analysed 6,648 bacteria cases from 11 countries and 86 publications.
Senior author Professor Paul Turner, from the University of Oxford, stated: "This study reveals important problems regarding the availability of effective antibiotics to treat serious infections in children. It also highlights the ongoing need for high quality laboratory data to monitor the AMR situation, which will facilitate timely changes to be made to treatment guidelines."
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