As consumers, we have high expectations for our well-being, including life extending treatments for those with chronic conditions such as cystic fibrosis, successful cancer chemotherapy regimens, and organ transplant and joint replacement surgeries – we expect to receive these treatments when required and without exception, write Tracey Guise and Laura J.V. Piddock on GPS. But imagine a world in which a simple scratch could prove fatal? Or even minor surgery became risky to perform? One recent study, reviewing 43,000 patients undergoing abdominal surgeries, showed that about 40 percent of patients having operations on the large intestine suffered an abdominal wound infection if they were not given antibiotics. Sadly, these once inconceivable scenarios are edging closer to reality as health professionals across the globe grapple with a dual crisis of antibiotic resistance and a depleted antibiotic discovery and development pipeline. Together, they pose a global crisis to human health as critical as the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s and 1990s. This is not a crisis pending – it is already here. globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn/2014/08/04/time-to-act-on-the-other-health-crisis/
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 15:38:46 +0000
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