The growing peril of drug-resistant superbugs

Many in India face a similar fate – they get admitted to hospitals with seemingly treatable illnesses, only to contract HAIs caused by superbugs.

While there are no India-wide estimates of how many people die due to antimicrobial resistance, Laxminarayanan pointed out that a bulk of the deaths take place in hospitals. “So, if I were to prioritise measures to tackle drug resistance, infection control in hospitals would be number one.” To be sure, HAIs have always been a risk to hospitalised patients globally. But increasing antimicrobial resistance is throwing a new spanner in the works; it is turning previously curable maladies into death sentences. The problem is that infection-control is not easy. It requires hospitals to aggressively push a range of best practices, including frequent hand washing, and caution while setting up devices like ventilators and catheters. Not enough hospitals check these boxes.