Superbugs Are Winning—and They’re Now Killing 50,000 Americans a Year

Drug-resistant bacteria and other microbes are a serious and growing public health threat. Data out today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quantifies the annual toll of these superbugs, and it’s not looking good. On Tuesday, the CDC released the latest version of its Antimicrobial Resistance (AR) Threats Report. The agency estimates that roughly 10 million infections and more than 50,000 deaths in the United States are now caused by drug-resistant bacteria and fungi every year—estimates well above the previous figures released in 2019. Though there has been some success at curbing certain drug-resistant infections, substantially more progress is needed to prevent the approaching antimicrobial apocalypse, outside experts say. “These numbers are alarming by any measure but are particularly sobering when infectious diseases physicians connect real patients with these statistics in their everyday experience,” said Wendy Armstrong, a clinician and president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, in a statement provided to Gizmodo. A growing toll The CDC released its first iteration of the AR Threats Report in 2013. In 2019, it released a more extensive tally focusing on 18 drug-resistant microbes that were especially urgent or serious, including the emerging fungus Candida auris (since renamed Candidozyma auris). That report estimated around 2.8 million infections and 35,000 deaths were caused by drug-resistant germs every year. In 2022, the CDC published another report that singled out drug-resistant germs commonly found in healthcare settings, but this newest report is the most comprehensive released since 2019. Based on data from 2023, drug-resistant bacteria and fungi now account for 9.7 million infections and 50,800 deaths in the U.S. annually, the CDC found. Roughly 40,000 of these deaths are linked to health care-associated infections; these infections also led to almost $12 billion in health care costs. The list of the most worrying superbugs is now at 19, separated into four urgent threats, 13 serious threats, and two concerning threats; six other germs are on a watch list. The newest addition is drug-resistant Neisseria meningitidis, which has been classified as a serious threat. There are some encouraging signs in the report. Rates of drug-resistant Clostridioides difficile, a common source of hospital-related infections, began to lower in 2018 and have remained stable since 2020. As such, the bacterial disease was downgraded from an urgent to a serious threat. That suggests that policies to reduce infection and resistance spread in hospitals are working to an extent. At the same time, infections caused by C. auris, while still rare overall, have surged tenfold since 2019, and some strains have displayed resistance to practically all available antifungals. The report also highlights that certain genes conferring resistance to our most precious antibiotics are spreading widely between bacteria. What needs to be done Scientists are working on novel strategies to tackle some of these superbugs before they can be a problem, such as vaccines for drug-resistant infections like gonorrhea, diarrhea-causing Shigella, and C. auris. But we will always need a steady supply of antimicrobials to handle these ever-evolving infections. Unfortunately, the pipeline of new antibiotics and antifungals has steadily dried up over the years. Existing nonprofit programs like CARB-X have shown some promise in motivating pharmaceutical companies to reenter antimicrobial development. According to Armstrong, however, it will take more drastic legislative action to truly make a dent in this slowdown. To that end, the IDSA and other organizations are aggressively pushing for the passage of the Pasteur Act, a bill intended to further speed up the drug pipeline and otherwise slow down antimicrobial resistance. “It is imperative that Congress pass the bipartisan PASTEUR Act to drive the development of the lifesaving novel antimicrobial drugs that are needed to treat resistant infections and to support antimicrobial stewardship programs to ensure that patients in all communities receive optimal care that protects the effectiveness of our precious antimicrobial drugs,” she said. Without real progress, drug-resistant infections threaten to cause substantially more harm and death in the near future. According to a 2014 report from the UK government, these infections could cause 10 million deaths worldwide annually by 2050, which would approach the current death toll from cancer. More than that, such infections would affect our lives and health even more than they do today. “Drug-resistant infections prolong hospital stays, drive up health care costs, and make it increasingly difficult—and sometimes impossible—for doctors to safely provide care like cancer chemotherapy, organ transplants, hip and knee replacements, and other medical care and surgeries,” Armstrong noted.