World
Global Scourge: ‘Superbugs’ Hunt Babies
India accounts for nearly
a third of the world’s new- born deaths. Researchers say there is now overwhelm- ing evidence that a large share of the bacteria found in India’s water, sewage, animals, soil, and pregnant women are immune to near- ly all antibiotics. David Sanders, associate
Newborn deaths from antibiotic-resistant pests are on the rise.
A BY JIM MEYERS
ntibiotic-resistant infections are increasing so rapidly that in India alone last year 58,000 babies died
from drug-resistant “superbugs” that they were born with, medical experts say. They add there are growing indi- cations American babies may be vul- nerable as well. The Indian babies were being born
with infections resistant to multiple forms of antibiotics, according to a study conducted by Dr. Vinod Paul, a physician and health official in India. “Reducing newborn deaths in India
is one of the most important public health priorities in the world, and this will require treating an increasing number of neonates who have sepsis and pneumonia,” Paul told The New York Times.
38 NEWSMAX | MARCH 2015
professor of biological sci- ences at Purdue University, is an expert on disease trans- mission. “This is a major crisis,”
Sanders tells Newsmax. “India is just an example of what has gone wrong. This is a worldwide problem.” Sanders says the mas-
INDIA’S WOES A mother cradles her baby in an Indian hospital. Inset: Unsanitary conditions, such as open defecation conditions, lead to infections.
Although India was the focus of
the study, other nations face similar epidemics. Beyond the sheer human tragedy
of newborns emerging with a disease physicians are powerless to treat, doc- tors are very concerned that new anti- biotic-resistant strains could spread worldwide.
sive drug resistance in India and elsewhere stems from three primary causes: errors by doctors, including mis- diagnosis and improper prescriptions; patients who ignore directions and stop taking antibiotics once they begin to feel better, giving the bacteria an opportunity to evolve and recover; and the widespread use of antibi- otics in livestock feed.
The latter practice, Sanders says,
reflects now largely debunked reports that antibiotics would increase the size of domesticated animals. Routinely providing antibiotics to otherwise healthy animals is danger- ous because bacteria have been known to cross over from animals to humans. The most frequent causes of drug-
MOTHER/ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES / MAN/AP IMAGES
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