MOSCOW, July 23 (RIA Novosti) – Antibiotic resistance that turns regular disease-causing bacteria into illnesses that cannot be controlled could turn into a pandemic, Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Tom Frieden said at a National Press Club luncheon.
“The thing that we are most at risk for is not the thing that we don’t know but something that’s hiding in plain sight. Something that could kill any of us, something that could undermine our ability to practice modern medicine, something that could devastate our economy, and something that could sicken or kill millions,” Freden said Tuesday.
The CDC director brought attention to the growing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which could cause complications by mutating into a new disease instead of the one that had been treated.
Frieden said the CDC in their attempts to fight the spread of resistant bacteria plans to isolate the bacteria’s existence in hospitals and reduce the numbers with tracking and stricter prevention methods.
Antibiotics, or anti-microbial agents, have been actively used to treat diseases over the past 70 years. The downside of its widespread use is that it has caused some bacteria to mutate and develop a resistance to these drugs. According to Frieden, antibiotic resistance costs $20 billion a year in health care expenditure.
