Today, the world is in an era of Antibiotic resistance in which treatment failure with these drugs and mortality caused by bacterial infections are increasing.
Antibiotic resistance is a serious global problem, causing approximately 1.27 million premature deaths in 2019 worldwide, substantially exceeding the 0.70 million deaths estimated in 2016.
And while antibiotic misuse and overuse are the main drivers of antibiotic resistance, a recent study published in the journal The Lancet showed that the Air pollution Increases antimicrobial resistance.
It is known that antibiotic resistance is not only a problem for humans, but also affects animals and the environment, so it is a global public health problem. And that is why experts are worried about the future.
According to the study, increased air pollution is potentially linked to an increased risk of antibiotic resistance, and the relationship between the two has strengthened over time. This is done through the small suspended particles, called PM 2.5, which are 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
According to the information published in the work, every time air pollution increases by 1%, there is a growth in antibiotic resistance of between 0.5 and 1.9%, depending on the pathogen. Over time, changes in PM 2.5 levels are leading to further increases in antibiotic resistance.
North Africa and West Asia are the regions where PM2.5 has the greatest impact on antibiotic resistance, accounting for 19% of changes in resistance levels. Levels in Europe and North America are low.
The data surveyed, according to the researchers, allow us to predict possible future scenarios, which indicate that if there were no changes in current policies on air pollution, by 2050, levels of antibiotic resistance worldwide could increase by 17%. The annual number of premature deaths related to this situation would rise to around 840,000, with the largest increases in sub-Saharan Africa.
“To our knowledge, this analysis is the first to comprehensively estimate the Global associations between PM 2.5 and clinical antibiotic resistance through univariate and multivariate analysis, the authors of the study specified in the publication of their conclusions. We identified that antibiotic resistance increased with the increase in PM 2.5, and using future population and air quality scenarios, we assessed for the first time the burden of antibiotic resistance associated with PM 2.5 worldwide.”
As they said, the results highlight that “the Air pollution control to reduce PM 2.5 concentrations could lead to significant economic and health benefits by reducing antibiotic resistance.”
Hong Chen is the lead author of the work, from Zhejiang University, China, and said that “the Benefits of controlling air pollution They could be twofold: not only will it reduce the harmful effects of poor air quality, but it could also play an important role in combating the rise and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”
The final dataset included more than 11.5 million isolates analyzed. Raw antibiotic resistance data included nine pathogens, including Acinetobacter baumannii, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Enterobacter aerogenes or E cloacae, Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium, as well as 43 types of antibiotic agents.
