We’re all laser-focused on the coronavirus, but doctors are raising concerns about antibiotic-resistant germs that are intensifying during this pandemic. As the coronavirus weakens patients’ immune systems, secondary illnesses like pneumonia are forcing doctors to increase the use of antibiotics for these bacterial infections.
The use of antibiotics in people with COVID-19 could result in increased resistance to the drugs’ benefits among the wider population, a new study suggests. The level of antibiotic use with coronavirus patients adds to the problem of increased antibiotic resistance. The findings are based on reports that up toContinue Reading
Doctors knew antibiotics weren’t effective against the coronavirus, but they feared patients could develop life-threatening bacterial co-infections and used them anyway, raising concerns about antibiotic resistance. Dr. Jeffrey Strich, a researcher and physician at The National Institutes of Health Clinical Center sits down with Fox News Digital to explain howContinue Reading
Bacterial co-infections are a serious risk for hospitalized patients with COVID-19. The risk is increased those in the ICU wards. The Journal of Infection reviewed the current data about how many hospitalized patients had a bacterial co-infection. Overall, 7% of hospitalised COVID-19 patients had a bacterial co-infection. A higher proportionContinue Reading
The increased use of antibiotics to combat the Covid-19 pandemic will strengthen bacterial resistance and ultimately lead to more deaths during the crisis and beyond, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned. The WHO said it was concerned that the inappropriate use of antibiotics during the coronavirus crisis would furtherContinue Reading
A health crisis is rapidly unfolding worldwide. It causes suffering and death, costs billions and threatens to overwhelm health-care systems, patients and their families. No, it’s not the coronavirus pandemic. It’s that other disastrous health crisis: drug resistance. NPR interviewed Dr. Zaman, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor at BostonContinue Reading
Each year a particular kind of infection kills more than 35,000 people in the United States. Those deaths are caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. And some scientists are concerned about how the current pandemic might affect those bacteria. The problem for doctors is that bacterial co-infections are deadly for people withContinue Reading
In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals are relying on tests capable of delivering reliable results, minimizing transmission risk and reducing time to treatment in the patients who need it most. Doctors are laser-focused on obtaining and using these tests to identify and treat patients with coronavirus. Yet theContinue Reading
This background review produced by Massachusetts General examines why bacterial superinfection is a driver of mortality in viral pneumonia such as influenza and COVID-19. It describes why doctors are concerned about bacterial infections if COVID-19 is a viral illness. Basically, the longer a patient stays in a hospital setting, theContinue Reading
