New antibiotics not effective in combatting bacteria

New Delhi: In a startling revelation, it has come to the notice that the new antibiotics, which are under development to combat the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance, are not efficient to control the disease-causing bacteria.

The disturbing fact has been revealed by World Health Organisation (WHO) in its report on antibacterial agents in clinical development. The WHO report highlighted about the new antibiotics that are being developed to treat drug-resistant, including tuberculosis that kills around 2.5 lakh people each year.

The report titled "Antibacterial agents in clinical development: An analysis of the antibacterial clinical development pipeline" has been released by WHO on Tuesday stated that most of the drugs currently in the clinical pipeline are modifications of existing classes of antibiotics and are only short-term solutions.

The report found very few potential treatment options for those antibiotic-resistant infections identified by WHO as posing the greatest threat to health, including drug-resistant tuberculosis.

"Antimicrobial resistance is a global health emergency that will seriously jeopardize progress in modern medicine," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO.

"There is an urgent need for more investment in research and development for antibiotic-resistant infections including TB, otherwise we will be forced back to a time when people feared common infections and risked their lives from minor surgery," Ghebreyesus said.

In addition to multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, WHO has identified 12 classes of priority pathogens – some of them causing common infections such as pneumonia or urinary tract infections – that are increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics and urgently in need of new treatments.

The report identifies 51 new antibiotics and biologicals in clinical development to treat priority antibiotic-resistant pathogens, as well as tuberculosis and the sometimes deadly diarrhoeal infection Clostridium difficile.

According to the findings of the report, there are also very few oral antibiotics in the pipeline yet these are essential formulations for treating infections outside hospitals or in resource-limited settings.