By Ilayda Cakirtekin
ISTANBUL (AA) - A new study has warned that Europe is likely to see a rise in drug-resistant bloodstream infections by 2050, largely driven by aging populations and higher infection rates among men.
"The ageing of our populations has the potential to drive increases in the mortality and morbidity burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) due to the increased risk of serious bacterial infection with age," explained the study published Tuesday in PLOS Medicine by researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
The study predicts that bloodstream infection rates may increase more in men than women across six of the eight bacteria included in European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-Net) surveillance over 2015–2019, while a more dramatic increase is expected for older age groups over 74 years.
Researchers analyzed over 12 million blood test records from 29 European countries gathered between 2010 and 2019, using the data to project how drug-resistant bacterial bloodstream infections could evolve by 2050 while factoring in age and sex demographics.
They warned that antibiotics-resistant bacterial infections are "a major and growing threat to public health."
The study also alerted that projections overlooking age and sex differences may underestimate a substantial share of the future burden, particularly among men and older populations.
It also found that even with strong public health measures, nearly one-third (around 32%) of the bacteria-antibiotic combinations examined would still fail to reach the target of a 10% reduction in infection rates by 2030.