Drug-resistant superbugs projected to kill 39 million by 2050
The Hindu
Global analysis predicts drug-resistant superbugs could kill 40 million by 2050, urging urgent action to prevent catastrophic scenario.
Infections of drug-resistant superbugs are projected to kill nearly 40 million people over the next 25 years, a global analysis predicted on Monday, September 16, 2024, with the researchers urging action to avoid this grim scenario.
Superbugs -- strains of bacteria or pathogens that have become resistant to antibiotics, making them much harder to treat -- have been recognised as a rising threat to global health.
The analysis has been billed as the first research to track the global impact of superbugs over time, and to estimate what could happen next.
More than a million people died from the superbugs -- also called antimicrobial resistance (AMR) -- per year across the world between 1990 and 2021, according to the GRAM study in The Lancet journal.
Deaths among children under five from superbugs actually fell by more than 50 percent over the last three decades, the study said, due to improving measures to prevent and control infections for infants. However, when children now catch superbugs, the infections are much harder to treat.
And deaths of over-70s have surged by more than 80 percent over the same period, as an ageing population became more vulnerable to infection.
Deaths from infections of MRSA, a type of staph bacteria that has become resistant to many antibiotics, doubled to 130,000 in 2021 from three decades earlier, the study said.
What began as a routine one-week mission for astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule quickly escalated into an unexpected eight-month stay in space. After a successful launch in June 2024, their mission faced multiple technical failures, including thruster malfunctions and helium leaks, making it too risky to return using the Starliner. NASA’s solution? Delay their return until early 2025 aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. Despite the extended mission, Williams and Wilmore remained resilient, continuing their work on the ISS as NASA worked to resolve the situation.
The story of the first-of-its-kind collaboration between award-winning Indian couturier Rahul Mishra and Italy’s multimillion-dollar fashion house Tod’s goes back to 2017 when their paths crossed in Paris. The latter reached out to Rahul — who had created waves in the industry with his couture edits at platforms like Paris Fashion Week — for a limited-edition handcrafted capsule of bags and shoes, which provoked his fiercely creative mind to take up the challenge. Made with absolute luxury of time and embroidered with intricate details, the Rahul Mishra X Tod’s has been launched today, during London Fashion Week, at Tod’s Bond Street Boutique.