CDC Superbug Report Counts Nearly Ten Million Infections

Drug-resistant germs cause an estimated ten million infections in the United States each year, according to the CDC superbug report released on October 27. The CDC superbug report puts the yearly death toll at fifty thousand eight hundred, a figure that covers nineteen drug-resistant germs ranked by how much danger they pose.

Superbugs are bacteria and fungi that have learned to survive the drugs designed to kill them, the CDC said. Their infections can be hard to treat, and in some cases impossible to treat, because the usual medicines no longer work. The new totals run higher than the totals in the agency's previous report, which estimated two million eight hundred thousand infections and thirty-five thousand deaths a year. The CDC superbug report warns against reading that gap as a straight increase, because the agency updated its data sources and its methods for counting cases. Dawn Sievert, senior science adviser for the CDC's Antimicrobial Resistance Coordination and Strategy Unit, told Healio that the new methods make a direct comparison with the older figures inappropriate.

Germs picked up in hospitals and other medical settings account for more than forty-two thousand of the yearly deaths, according to Drugs.com, which cited the CDC superbug report. Those infections also add nearly twelve billion dollars in health care costs each year. "Antimicrobial resistance threatens modern medicine and puts millions of Americans at risk every year," CDC Director Erica Schwartz said in a statement announcing the CDC superbug report.

What the CDC superbug report found

The CDC superbug report sorts its nineteen threats into tiers based on clinical impact, economic impact, current case counts, projected growth, transmissibility, prevention options, and whether effective treatments exist, according to Becker's Hospital Review. Four germs sit in the urgent tier, which calls for aggressive public health action. Thirteen more are ranked serious, and two are ranked concerning. The CDC superbug report also keeps a watch list of six additional pathogens whose full burden is not yet understood.

Three pathogens joined the watch list in this edition, according to Becker's Hospital Review: drug-resistant dermatophytes, drug-resistant Haemophilus influenzae, and nontuberculous mycobacteria. Drug-resistant Neisseria meningitidis was added as a serious threat. The serious tier also includes MRSA, drug-resistant tuberculosis, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus, and drug-resistant Salmonella and Shigella, according to Drugs.com.

The four urgent threats

Candida auris, a fungus that spreads in hospitals and nursing homes, leads the urgent tier of the CDC superbug report. The fungus resists most antifungal drugs, and reported cases rose roughly tenfold since 2019, according to Particle News. Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter, bacteria that cause pneumonia and wound, blood, and urinary tract infections, often strike intensive care patients, according to Drugs.com. Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales, known as CRE, can pass drug resistance to other germs. Drug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes gonorrhea, now resists nearly every antibiotic, according to Drugs.com.

Carbapenems are powerful antibiotics that doctors often save for cases where nothing else works, according to Drugs.com. That detail explains why resistance to this drug class worries clinicians so much. When a germ survives a last-resort antibiotic, doctors have few options left, and patients can face longer hospital stays, stronger side effects from backup drugs, or infections that cannot be cleared at all.

University of Washington infectious disease physician Helen Chu told the Washington Post that she had seen more severe infections among hospitalized patients in recent years, including gonorrhea and necrotizing fasciitis, a tissue-destroying infection, according to Drugs.com. Infectious Diseases Society of America president Wendy Armstrong told the Washington Post that routine care such as chemotherapy, organ transplants, and joint replacements could be put at risk, according to Drugs.com, because the protocols for those procedures rely on antibiotics to prevent infection.

One improvement in the numbers

The CDC superbug report contains one clear piece of good news. Clostridioides difficile, usually called C. diff, moved down from the urgent tier to the serious tier after rates fell, according to NBC Chicago. C. diff causes severe diarrhea and sometimes serious complications, and it is closely tied to antibiotic use, because antibiotics disturb the normal balance of bacteria in the gut. The CDC said better diagnosis and more successful infection prevention in hospitals and other health care settings sit behind the improvement, according to Drugs.com.

Public health and medical groups said the findings add urgency to better infection control, broader genomic surveillance, and financial incentives to restart antibiotic and antifungal development, according to Particle News. One proposal those groups point to is the PASTEUR Act, which would pay drugmakers for new antibiotics even when sales stay low, so that developing a drug for rare resistant infections becomes financially viable.

For readers, the CDC's advice stays practical. Antibiotics work only on bacteria, so they will not help colds or flu, which are caused by viruses, according to Drugs.com. The CDC advises against pressuring a doctor for an antibiotic, saving leftover pills for later, or taking the wrong drug, dose, or length of treatment, because each misuse gives germs another chance to adapt. The CDC superbug report frames that advice as a shared responsibility: doctors prescribe more carefully, hospitals tighten infection control, and patients use antibiotics only when they are truly needed.

Related reading: according to earlier GenZNewZ reporting, a CDC teen mental health report showed teens turning a corner, and an Ebola vaccine trial brought hope to a Congo outbreak. Read those stories here: CDC Teen Mental Health Report Shows Teens Turning a Corner and Ebola Vaccine Trial Brings Hope to Congo Outbreak. External sources for this story include Healio and Drugs.com.