Death by UTI and the next pandemic?

UTIs are becoming more deadly due to antibiotic resistance, according to a new study. For the love of microbes, wipe front to back.

UTIs are becoming more deadly due to antibiotic resistance, according to a new study. For the love of microbes, wipe front to back.

Just as we are “learning to live with Covid”, deadly drug-resistant urinary tract infections (UTIs) pop around.

UTIs are becoming more deadly due to antimicrobial resistance, according to a new CSIRO study.

The bacteria and viruses causing common infections have mutated, grown stronger, and are no longer responding to medications.

The Australian Academy of Science has called antimicrobial resistance (AMR) “the next pandemic”. 

“We face a looming public health crisis and possibly another pandemic — currently an ‘invisible pandemic’ — as a consequence of rapidly accelerating AMR and decreased investment by pharmaceutical companies in new antibiotic discovery,” a policy statement from mid-2021 read.

If you get better after a couple of days of antibiotics and do not finish the pack, that is contributing to the crisis.

You may have defeated the virus or bacteria but, unless you totally obliterate it by finishing your script, you leave it with a fighting chance to mutate.

The misuse or overuse of antibiotics is what causes resistance to the drugs designed to kill them.

As one in two women and one in 20 men will have a UTI in their lifetime, the misuse of antibiotics as treatment is causing a super UTI to circulate. 

In one of the biggest studies of its kind, the CSIRO, Queensland University of Technology and the University of Queenslan, analysed data from 21,268 patients across 134 Queensland hospitals who had caught their infections in the community.  

They found patients were more than twice as likely to die from drug-resistant UTIs than from the more traditional UTIs which responded to medication.

These drug-resistant UTIs were caused by the gnarly pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which has a particular antipathy to antibiotics. These UTIs can be difficult to eradicate and land people in hospital.

Although there are still second and third line treatments available for Pseudomonas, Dr Wozniak said if the pathogen continues to develop resistance in the future, there could be no cure. 

“Without effective antibiotics, many standard medical procedures and life-saving surgeries will become increasingly life-threatening,” she said.  

Dr Wozniak said we were “at quite a critical stage” in AMR.

“It’s been called the silent pandemic, the wicked problem, which is in line with the global impact it is going to have. We’re not developing new antibiotics fast enough,” Dr Wozniak said.

“If we have one strain of bacteria hyper-resistant to all antibiotics, then there’s nothing to treat it. That’s when it could get really bad … It doesn’t exist yet, thank God.”

She said we had to focus on prevention including “the right drug for the right bug”, which is difficult when some regional and remote doctor’s clinics in the Northern Territory, for example, have few antibiotics options and long wait times on urine samples. 

And the ol’ Cranberry juice might help you prevent a UTI, but it likely won’t help you get rid of one. Although the science is still out.

CSIRO's anti antimicrobial resistance advice:

• Wash your hands and body
• Keep your home clean
• Wash your fruits and vegetables well
• Only take antibiotics when necessary AND complete the  full pack