S'pore reviewing plan to better control the spread of superbugs

While prevalence of drug-resistant infections is low, it is still a threat, says don

- Judith Tan

The Republic is reviewing its action plan to better control the emergence and spread of future drug-resistant superbugs.

The National Strategic Action Plan was launched in 2017 to reduce the antimicrobial resistance rate (AMR) here — meaning the prevalence of drug-resistant infections — through education, surveillance, research, infection prevention and control, and optimisation of antimicrobial use.

Currently, the country’s AMR for a number of infections such as the one caused by the drug-resistant E. coli and the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection is lower than the global rate, according to data submitted to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

On Oct 13, the WHO had sounded the alarm over soaring numbers of drug-resistant bacterial infections, which compromise the effectiveness of lifesaving treatments and render minor injuries and common infections potentially deadly.

The United Nations’ health agency warned that one in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections worldwide in 2023 showed resistance to antibiotic treatments.

The global rate for E. coli resistance to third-generation cephalosporins — broad-spectrum antibiotics — in bloodstream infections is 44.8 per cent, while in Singapore it is almost half of that at 23.8 per cent.

When it comes to MRSA, its global AMR is 27.1 per cent; it is 23.6 per cent in Singapore.

Though the local AMR is low and generally stable since 2019, antimicrobial resistance still poses a threat and “we must continue our fight against it”, Associate Professor Teoh Yee Leong, group director of communicable diseases collaborations at the Communicable Diseases Agency (CDA), told The Straits Times.