Millions of people are at risk of losing their lives due to a growing drug-related phenomenon.
Medication should always be taken with caution. In a recent study in the medical journal The Lancetscientists have estimated that 39 million people risk dying by 2050 due to dangers linked to medications and their increasingly recurring use. A phenomenon which was known but whose consequences had never yet been estimated.
The researchers looked at 22 pathogens, 84 combinations between pathogens and treatments as well as 11 infectious syndromes in 520 million people of all ages, in 204 countries and territories between 1990 and 2021. They estimated that this danger had caused more than ‘one million deaths over this period.
It is more the elderly who have been affected. Prevention among children under five has reduced the death rate by more than 50%, while that among adults over 70 has jumped by 80% following the aging of populations. The number of direct victims could reach, according to models, 1.91 million people per year across the world by 2050, an increase of 67% compared to 2021. Today, in France, this represents 5,500 deaths per year.
What scientists fear so much is called: antibiotic resistance. The increasingly massive consumption of drugs allows bacteria to develop defense mechanisms against them. They therefore no longer respond to treatment. This resistance could prove fatal.
“Antibiotics no longer work reliably due to drug resistance. Twenty years ago, the chance of this happening was on the order of one chance in a hundred, or even less. Today, this The probability is one in three, one in four,” Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the One Health Trust research institute, told EuroNews.
To mitigate this risk, it is necessary to avoid overconsumption of these drugs, France being the fourth European country with the highest consumption of antibiotics, preceded by Greece, Romania and Bulgaria. It is therefore necessary to avoid resorting too much to self-medication and instead seek the advice of a doctor, who will adapt the doses, as well as define the duration of the treatment to be respected. Improved treatment of infections could also help move away from this terrible scenario. “This is a very silent pandemic that continues to spread. Our attention must be focused on that,” insisted Ahmed Ogwell, vice president of global health strategy at the Nations Foundation. united, reports EuroNews.