Bacteria resistant to antibiotics: Italy in second place in Europe for deaths

Data on antibiotic resistance from bacteria records from Greece, Italy, and Romania with a negative record of deaths and disease severity. In Greece, in fact, the deaths from resistant infections were 20 per 100 thousand inhabitants, 19 in Italy, and 13 in Romania. There are 33 thousand deaths that occur every year in Europe from infections linked to bacteria resistant to antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance occurs when microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi develop the ability to resist drugs designed to eradicate them. Thus they continue to grow in the organism which they persistently infect. 

This problem could be caused by an excessive and wrong use of antibiotics, which instead must be used consciously . To solve this problem, health institutions are trying to keep antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections under control at a national and international level. Surveillance systems are used , in Italy antibiotic resistance is controlled with the ISS surveillance system. This relies on a network of hospital clinical microbiology laboratories that submit antibiotic susceptibility data. The latter related to eight organisms considered relevant for this phenomenon. 

It emerges that, between 2016 and 2020, the number of infections with resistant bacteria increased significantly (from 685,433 to 865,767). Even the deaths (from 30,730 to 38,710 each year). 71% of antibiotic resistant infections were acquired in hospitals. The most affected people are infants and the elderly. 

• Italy ranks second in Europe for deaths caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria (wired.it)