Superbugs could kill 39 million people by 2050. Here's what Canadian survivors, doctors say should change
CBC
This story is part of CBC Health's Second Opinion, a weekly analysis of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers on Saturday mornings. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.
Melissa Murray regularly ran 10 kilometres a day — until a serious bacterial infection caused her to nearly lose a leg.
Last summer, the Toronto woman who'd worked 60-hour weeks as an account manager suddenly needed round-the-clock care to recover from sepsis. The life-threatening condition results from the immune system's overreaction to fighting an infection.
Septic shock deprived Murray's heart and kidneys of vital blood and oxygen, and her blood pressure plunged dangerously low. To save her life, surgeons urgently had to cut out half a calf muscle and tendons plus the inner side of the other leg.
"I kept saying it feels like there's like a campfire in my leg," Murray, 46, recalled of the "excruciating" ordeal in July 2023.
"The pain was so bad I wanted to get out of my body."
Murray had an invasive Group A strep (iGAS) bacterial infection that could not be treated with standard antibiotics. Doctors don't know how Murray got the infection, saying it could've been from something as small as a nick in the skin from shaving.
Antibiotic-resistant microbes, sometimes called superbugs, are major contributors to sepsis — and may well be the biggest international public health threat of our time. World leaders called antibiotic resistance "an urgent global health threat." Here's what patients and doctors say should change.
Bacteria live in or on us, often beneficially or harmlessly. But antimicrobial resistance occurs when the germs that can cause infections develop the ability to evade medicines like antibiotics.
At this week's United Nations General Assembly in New York, world leaders called antimicrobial resistance or AMR "an urgent global health threat," and aimed to reduce the estimated 4.95 million human deaths associated with it per year by 10 per cent by 2030.
As bacteria evolve over time, they can stop responding to the antibiotics that once killed them. Infections are then harder to treat — and sometimes even impossible.
Sepsis is one of the devastating consequences of antimicrobial resistance. The resistance can also render a minor skin wound incurable or turn a routine surgery into an opportunity for dangerous microbes to invade.
Antimicrobial resistance "is one of the major causes of death in [all] our countries as we speak, but the worst part of the news is that it will be the No. 1 cause of death by 2050," Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, the chair of the Global Leaders Group on AMR, told reporters from the UN on Thursday.
Antibiotics are a precious resource. Bacteria acquire resistance genes from each other. If someone doesn't take all of the antibiotic pills they've been prescribed, a single bacterium remaining in the person's system can evolve resistance and quickly pass on the advantage.
Shopping local may be the desire, but affordability might decide where shoppers spend their money this Christmas season.
As classes across New Brunswick pause for the holidays, it’s not yet clear which schools are making a dent in chronic absenteeism — a stubborn post-pandemic trend that mostly afflicts the high school cohort, especially in the Anglophone West school district.
CBC Quebec has launched its Make the Season Kind campaign. It's our annual campaign that focuses on food insecurity, while also celebrating kindness, generosity and community spirit around the province.
Premier Wab Kinew says Manitoba will hold a public inquiry as soon as 2026 into the former Progressive Conservative government’s post-election efforts to approve an environmental licence for sand-mining company Sio Silica.
Premier Scott Moe has led the Saskatchewan Party through two straight elections, winning majority governments each time.
Eight weeks after adding a GM BrightDrop van to the fleet of his plumbing and heating business, Marty Salliss has no complaints, only praise.
Nearly half of Alberta’s Grade 6 students failed the provincewide math test in 2024, three years after the province started rolling out its new elementary school curriculum.
Toronto could get new cars on the road whose drivers will never get frustrated by gridlock — because the cars would be driving themselves.
Amidst a cost-of-living crisis, some London-area organizations say they have noticed a decline in donations this holiday season.
Prominent northern leaders have been touting the Arctic economic and security corridor as a "nation-building" project that will bring economic benefits to the two territories it straddles, but others are split on how much good will come out of it.
When the federal government tabled its 2025 budget last month, it included a proposal that tax fraud experts say is long overdue — if also a belated acknowledgement that the Canada Revenue Agency has been repeatedly duped into paying out untold millions in bogus tax refunds to scammers.
Talking with an AI chatbot can successfully convince people to change their votes and could affect the outcome of future elections, according to a new study.
While some are writing wishlists for Santa Claus, a group of Newfoundland and Labrador youth are writing their wishlist for the provincial government.