German doctors warn of growing threat of antibiotic resistance

Tengrinews.kz - Around 35,000 people in the European Union die each year from infections caused by antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Recent research indicates that by 2050, more than 39 million people worldwide could die from this issue, according to Bild, a German newspaper.
Frank M. Brunkhorst, an intensive care physician from Jena University Hospital, identified two primary causes of antibiotic resistance.

"There are two main reasons: Firstly, too many antibiotics are still being prescribed, especially in the outpatient sector. Secondly, many resistant germs are coming to us due to international travel, which is booming again after Corona. There are extremely high resistance rates, especially in countries like Greece, Portugal, Turkey, but also in India and other Asian countries. We have to warn people here: If someone brings such a germ back from vacation and infects their sick grandfather here, it can be life-threatening for them," said the doctor.

The publication notes that antibiotics are unnecessary for almost all respiratory infections, as they are most often caused by viruses, which antibiotics cannot treat.

"Children with colds in particular are given too many medications. And antibiotics are still prescribed too easily for urinary tract infections such as cystitis; they are often not even necessary," the article states.

According to Mathias Pletz, president of the Paul Ehrlich Society for Infection Therapy, the effectiveness of antibiotics is increasingly under threat.

"We are currently losing the achievements of modern medicine and falling back into the time before the discovery of penicillin," he stated.

Earlier, the Presidential Medical Center's Hospital and the Institute of Nuclear Physics have begun implementing new nuclear medicine technologies for cancer diagnosis and treatment in Kazakhstan.