STAYING AHEAD OF SUPERBUGS

INFECTIOUS BACTERIA ARE BECOMING HARDER TO TREAT WITH ANTIBIOTICS, PUTTING MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD AT RISK

- Melissa Greer

When Steffanie Strathdee's husband, Tom Patterson, fell ill while on vacation, the infectious disease epidemiologist couldn't have imagined the months-long fight for his life that lay ahead of them.

The couple was on a cruise on the Nile River in Egypt in 2015 when Patterson suddenly experienced severe stomach pains—the result of a gallstone that had caused an abscess to form in his abdomen. After being seen at a clinic in Egypt, where his symptoms only got worse, Patterson was flown to Germany for further treatment. There, doctors discovered that his abscess was riddled with Acinetobacter baumannii, an opportunistic superbug—a bacteria resistant to virtually all antibiotics.

"It was terrifying, and I was shocked," says Strathdee. "It felt like a cruel joke, because here I am an infectious disease epidemiologist and I've been blindsided by a superbug crisis."

A superbug is a hard-to-treat infection, usually caused by a strain of bacteria that has developed resistance to several types of antibiotics. In some cases, viruses, parasites, or fungi can also be considered superbugs if they no longer respond to antiviral, antiparasitic, or antifungal treatments—collectively called antimicrobials. And this antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, is a growing concern among healthcare professionals and infectious disease experts. A new study published in the Lancet estimates that AMR could cause as many as 10 million deaths per year by 2050.

Antibiotics have been considered a miracle drug since the discovery of penicillin in 1928. They work by killing bacteria and preventing them from multiplying, and have made many modern medical procedures possible, including open-heart surgery, organ transplants, and cancer treatments. Thanks to antibiotics, the average human lifespan has increased by more than 20 years.