More than 370 Irish patients died from drug-resistant superbugs in a year, study finds

Drug-resistant superbugs were responsible for more than 370 deaths of Irish patients in a single year, an international study has estimated.

An estimated 1,770 patients died with a drug-resistant infection in 2019, though the resistance may not have been a factor, according to the study published in The Lancet Global Health.

The true burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is thought to lie between these two figures, as the impact of reducing drug resistance is not entirely clear, the researchers say.

The single most lethal bug in Ireland was the increasingly penicillin-resistant E. coli, which was estimated to be associated with 554 of the 1,770 deaths.

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Other problematic organisms in Ireland included Staphylococcus aureus (associated with 362 deaths), Klebsiella pneumoniae (189), Streptococcus pneumoniae (171) and Enterococcus faecium (140).

Across the World Health Organisation Europe region, an estimated 541,000 deaths were associated with bacterial antimicrobial resistance, while 133,000 deaths were attributable to AMR, according to the study. The vast majority of these deaths were accounted for by seven leading pathogens.

The problem of growing resistance to existing drug treatments was most acute for bloodstream infections, which accounted for 195,000 deaths associated with resistance, followed by intra-abdominal and respiratory infections.

Antimicrobials, which include antibiotics, are medicines used to treat infections or disease. AMR occurs when an antimicrobial that was previously effective is no longer effective to treat an infection. Growing resistance has been linked to overuse of antibiotics and other treatments.

The latest study says the high levels of resistance, together with the high death rates associated with seven main pathogens, show that AMR is a serious threat to public health across Europe.

Rates of resistance were highest in former Soviet republics such as Tajikistan, Uzbekisan and Azerbaijan, which are in the WHO Europe region, and lowest in Sweden, Finland and Switzerland. Irish rates were lower than in the UK but higher than in nine other EU states.

In Ireland, it was estimated that 14.8 per cent of deaths in 2019 involved infection. Some 36.7 per cent of these — 1,770 deaths — were associated with resistance and 7.9 per cent — 378 deaths — were attributable to resistance.

The study estimated the disease burden from growing drug resistance using two “counterfactual” scenarios: deaths “attributable to” AMR, against an alternative scenario where infections with resistant bugs are replaced with drug-susceptible ones; and deaths “associated with” AMR, where drug-resistant infections would not occur at all.

The Government set up a high-level committee set up to lead the fight against AMR in 2014 but it was later disbanded.

Globally, an estimated 5 million deaths were associated with AMR in 2019, a previous study found.