The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released its updated Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States (AR Threats Report) indicating that antibiotic-resistant bacteria and fungi cause more than 2.8 million infections and 35,000 deaths in the United States each year. That means, on average, someone in the United States gets an antibiotic-resistant infection every 11 seconds and every 15 minutes someone dies. When Clostridioides difficile, a bacterium which is not typically resistant but can cause deadly diarrhea and is associated with antibiotic use, is added to these, the U.S. toll of all the threats in the report exceeds 3 million infections and 48,000 deaths. Using data sources not previously available, the new report shows that there were nearly twice as many annual deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections as CDC originally reported in 2013.
New in the 2019 report:
- Antibiotic resistance threats list—The list of 18 germs includes two new urgent threats: drug-resistant Candida auris and carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter, bringing the number of urgent threats to five. These are added to the three identified in 2013: CRE, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Clostridioides difficile.
- Watch list—The new report identifies three additional germs that have yet to spread resistance widely or are not well understood in the United States, but that CDC and other public health experts closely monitor.
- Trends—For some germs, CDC studied how estimates of antibiotic-resistant infections and deaths have changed over time. Resistant infections and deaths from germs often associated with hospitals are steadily declining. Resistance to essential antibiotics is increasing in seven of the 18 germs.
- Electronic health data—For the first time, the infection and death estimates for healthcare-associated germs were calculated using electronic health data from hospitals.
