PRNewswire - October 29, 2004

WASHINGTON -- A new report released at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), describes the ominous presence of disease-causing microorganisms resistant to today's front- line drugs. Shadow Epidemic: The Growing Menace of Drug Resistance presents up-to-date findings from major groups tracking resistance worldwide including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. The report indicates that drug resistance is a global pandemic potentially threatening the treatment of every patient who contracts an infectious disease. Drug resistance as first recognized in bacteria is now becoming apparent in the pathogens causing HIV/AIDS and malaria.

"These findings are so compelling, that we have prepared an early release calling for a redoubling of efforts to strengthen our national security against resistant infections. Without coordinated action, we risk facing a return to the time when infectious disease deaths were commonplace and life expectancy was short," announced Stuart B. Levy M.D., president of the Alliance for Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA), the global public health group that compiled the report.

"In addition to the ominous findings, there is a larger problem of a complete lack of knowledge in vast regions of the world about the emergence of dangerous infectious agents. Because microbes in one part of the world can easily spread to another there is a national security mandate to expand our global surveillance networks throughout the world," added Levy.

Shadow Epidemic indicates that health practitioners worldwide are operating somewhat blindly: without knowledge of drug resistance patterns and with a dwindling supply of effective antimicrobial agents. The findings reveal a common story of increasing treatment failures often attributable to antibiotic misuse and lack of knowledge about drug resistance.

Among the key findings of the report are:

• Potentially deadly staph infections contracted by otherwise healthy individuals in the community are on the rise. These skin infections, caused by a bacterium known as community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA), have struck children, student athletes, military personnel, and prisoners.
• Drug-resistant strains of HIV -- the virus that causes AIDS -- have emerged in affluent nations, and are poised to strike developing regions where treatments are just now becoming more accessible.
• The spread of malaria parasites resistant to chloroquine and other drugs has brought more deaths and illness from the disease and increased the cost of treatment by 1000%.
• Untreatable hospital infections are on the rise in industrial countries due to increased drug resistance among gram-negative bacteria, such as Klebsiella, Acinetobacter, and Pseudomonas.
• Widely contagious gonorrhea is increasingly impervious to traditional drug treatments, such as penicillin and tetracycline and in some areas, even today's most reliable class -- the quinolone drugs.
• The cost of drug resistance for bacterial infections in the U.S. was last estimated in 1986 at $5-6 billion annually. There has been no official government study to update these cost estimates. Considering additional expenses now attributable to new drug resistance trends, the problem will become a large burden on health insurance and government health programs.

According to Congressman Stephen F. Lynch (D-MA), a member of the Subcommittee on National Security and Emerging Threats, "Drug-resistant infections have the potential to overrun our most widely used antibiotics and pose a very serious threat to public health. I believe that Congress has a responsibility to avoid a crisis in this area as we consider other Homeland Security priorities."

The drivers of the drug resistance problem include: over-the-counter sales in developing countries, inappropriate patient demand in industrial countries, and lack of incentives for new drug and diagnostics development. After 25 years of blue ribbon commissions, we are calling for concerted international action, on the scale of other national defense programs to forestall epidemics of untreatable infections. Dr. Thomas O'Brien, Vice President of APUA adds, "Lack adequate reconnaissance on drug resistance is a major barrier hindering our response. You can't fight what you can't see. Promoting surveillance and integration of drug resistance data is the purpose of APUA's GAARD Project which initiated this report."

Shadow Epidemic is a project of APUA's Global Advisory on Antibiotic Resistance Data (GAARD) network, founded in 1998. An Executive Summary of the report will be distributed at the ASM ICAAC Meeting.

For more information on the Shadow Epidemic report, or on the general issue of antimicrobial resistance, visit the APUA website: http://www.apua.org/.

Press Event: Sunday, October 31, 2004 Washington Convention Center Room 101, 801 Mount Vernon Place NW, Washington, D.C.

Source: Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA)

CONTACT: Stuart B. Levy, M.D., President, +1-617-407-5622 (cell), or Kathleen T. Young, Executive Director +1-617-610-3313 (cell), both of Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics

Web site: http://www.apua.org/

041029
PR041032