OMS. CONCERN OVER THE LACK OF NEW ANTIBIOTICS
28 septiembre 2017

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced an alert due to the lack of investing to facilitate the development of new medications in the fight against ever more resistant bacteria. For this reason, the institution called for a redoubling of funding in the fight against the growing threat and made it known that, out of a total of 51 new products under review, only eight can be considered as innovative in the fight against priority pathogens, such as tuberculosis.

Strengthening the arsenal of prescriptions to combat an illness such as tuberculosis is crucial given the 250,000 persons it kills each year. In addition, this past February, the WHO published a list of 12 families of ‘superbugs’ which it considers urgent to be prepared to fight in terms of manufacturing new medications. While there are certain types of bacteria that cause common infections, such as pneumonia, antibacterial resistance has become a global health emergency.

Within this context, it is essential to develop and research new antibiotics in order to prevent a return to a time when people lost their lives due to low-risk situations for which there was no preparation in place. The organization indicates that there are few oral options to combat these conditions and let it be known that no less than U$S 800 million must be allocated to the production of new antibiotics in the case of tuberculosis.

The bacteria the institution is referring to could kill 10 million people by 2050 and the problem does not lie solely in the production of new drugs to fight it, but also requires prevention and the promotion of existing treatments, which is often neglected, both at the human level as well as among animals, which are frequently agents of contagion.

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