MANY MINDEDChildhood infections grow harder to treat as resistance climbs everywhere
Researchers analyzed 106,581 infection samples from children up to age 18 across 82 countries and found antibiotic resistance increased in every region between 2004 and 2022. The work, led by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute with the University of Sydney, was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Babies and children in intensive care, and those in countries with fewer healthcare resources, are hit hardest.
Severe infections such as sepsis and pneumonia are driving the rise, often caused by Acinetobacter baumannii. Klebsiella, a common cause of urinary tract infections and liver abscesses, showed the fastest increase in resistance, especially in south-east Asia, eastern Europe and the western Pacific. In lower-income countries, unregulated antibiotic use and poor sanitation are drivers; in wealthier ones, overuse in farming, veterinary care and healthcare.
Effective antibiotics are a foundational health commons: they make routine infections survivable and cheap to treat. As resistance spreads, once-ordinary illnesses become costly, dangerous, or untreatable, and the burden falls first on the most vulnerable children. That erosion quietly raises the price of basic care everywhere.
The team launched a website, AMR in Kids, offering region- and pathogen-specific forecasts to 2035. Its modelling projects resistance to last-line antibiotics reaching 82% for Acinetobacter baumannii and 35% for Klebsiella by then. Those figures are statistical projections, not observed data, and the underlying samples run only through 2022 — but the measured trend they extend from is already global and upward.
Source: Guardian