Infectious Disease On Rise Among Children Due To Rise In Antibiotics

In one of the latest studies related to harmful effects of antibiotic it is learned since 2007 the number of hospitalized children infected with bacteria resistant to several types of antibiotic drugs in the United States have surged.

The study was conducted by researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. They followed diagnostic and billing claim codes from data of 48 children’s hospitals and confirmed for the first time the extent of infections with multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria, which are commonly called superbugs.

The researchers identified from the data diagnoses of infections with Enterobacteriaceae, which is a bacterial family that includes Shigella, Escherichia coli and salmonella.

More than 700 instances of MDR was found by the researchers among 107,000 diagnoses of Enterobacteriaceae infections in the data.

Details of the study are published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. It reveals in eight-year span of the study, between 2007 and 2015, one percent of the infections resistant have been found to antibiotics.

Researchers further found most of the MDR infections were present before the children arrived to the hospital. This mean the superbugs are circulated in great amount in the US.

Even though the researchers didn’t found high death rate among the children infected with superbug, but more deaths occurred in the group.

The most at risk were older children and those who had other illnesses too.

However, the study may be wrong and deviating said Michael Smith as those are based on the diagnostic codes and billing claims and not on the blood samples or other biological data.

Smith specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Louisville School of Medicine and he agree with the trend that is a matter of concern.

He said, “The rate at which these discharges are increasing is very steep.”

Director of epidemiology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, Janet Haas, said improvements in the tests could lead to more diagnoses during the latter years.

Haas added, “Some caution in interpreting the data is warranted.”

The US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) said more than thirty percent of the prescribed antibiotics across the country are unnecessary. This has resulted with some easily treatable infection tough now like the E. coli is not easily eliminated with penicillin.

The superbug is also spreading faster by the practice of administrating antibiotics to livestock in the US.