Only 8% of bacterial infections in India treated appropriately in 2019: Lancet study

New Delhi: Only about eight per cent of bacterial infections detected in 2019 in India were treated appropriately, according to an analysis of low- and middle-income countries.

Findings published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal show that in 2019, there were nearly 15 lakh bacterial infections resistant to carbapenems -- a common antibiotic -- across eight countries that were under study.

Carbapenems are used for treating severe infections -- such as those acquired from being inside a hospital, where bacteria resistant to antibiotics are abundant.

Of the 15 lakh bacterial infections, only over a lakh treatment courses were procured -- the resulting treatment gap meant that only 6.9 per cent of the patients were treated appropriately, researchers, including those from the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP), Switzerland, found.

"India procured most of the treatment courses (80.5 per cent; 83,468 courses), with 7.8 per cent of infections treated appropriately," the authors wrote.

The eight countries that were part of the study included Bangladesh, Pakistan and Mexico.

The most-procured antibiotic was tigecycline -- usually prescribed in hospitals for serious infections.

Most of the 15 lakh infections were found to have occurred in South Asia, with over 10 lakh infections estimated to have occurred in India.

Antibiotic, or antimicrobial, resistance is emerging as a major public health, with a 2024 Lancet study projecting over 39 million around the world could die due to such infections in the coming 25 years -- most of these could occur in South Asia, it said.

The study also estimated that over a million died every year during 1990-2021 from antibiotic resistance, in which disease-causing bacteria become immune to drugs developed to kill them, thereby rendering these drugs ineffective.

For this study, data from a systematic analysis of the burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance from 1990 to 2021 -- named 'GRAM' study -- was analysed, along with that from a health-care database managed by IQVIA, a US-based life sciences company.

The authors said the findings highlight the most recently available picture of the state of care for antimicrobial-resistant infections in the selected low- and middle-income countries.

The results also underscore the need for meaningful action by global and national policy makers, the team said.