A new study, reported on by EurekAlert, shows that hospital-acquired antimicrobial resistant (AMR) infections remain “well above pre-pandemic levels.”
AMR is estimated to cause “at least 35,000 deaths annually in the U.S. and 1.27 million worldwide.” Resistant hospital-related infections had grown 15% between 2019 and 2020, and the lasting effects of this uptick remain unexplored. In order to provide an updated report, researchers “analyzed trends in incidence of AMR infections in adults…in 120 hospitals before, during, and after the pandemic,” looking through an administrative dataset “representing 20% of U.S. hospitalizations.”
The hospitalizations were examined for “culture-confirmed infection by six pathogens” that result in AMR infections. It was found that during the pandemic, “the overall prevalence of AMR infections increased by 6.3%...This was driven primarily by a steep rise in hospital-acquired resistant infections, which rose at least 32%.”
Plus, infections “due to gram-negative pathogens—those that are resistant to multiple drugs and are increasingly resistant to most available antibiotics—increased by almost 20% compared to pre-pandemic levels, while resistant gram-positive infections fell by 4.2%.”
Hospital-acquired infections “resistant to commonly prescribed antibiotics called carbapenems” drove the greatest increases. Under this umbrella are “infections caused by CRAB which grew 151% during the two years of the pandemic…followed by CRE which rose 62%...and CR-PA which increased by 54%.”
During and after the pandemic, “community-acquired MRSA infections declined by 10%” and 19% respectively. Researchers also found that “hospitals with the highest levels of surges in severely ill COVID-19 patients during the pandemic had the largest increases in hospital-acquired AMR infections.”
Post-pandemic, “overall AMR incidence has nearly returned to pre-pandemic rates,” but “hospital-acquired AMR infections remained 13% above pre-pandemic levels in December 2022.”
