Antibiotic crisis looming: Osterholm's thoughts

I woke up to this headline in my inbox from the WHO--"The world is running out of antibiotics, WHO report confirms"....Yikes!

A new WHO report was published today Antibacterial agents in clinical development – an analysis of the antibacterial clinical development pipeline, including tuberculosis which shows a serious lack of new antibiotics under development to combat the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance.

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 which kills around 250 000 people each year.

The report identifies 51 new antibiotics and biologicals in clinical development to treat priority antibiotic-resistant pathogens; however, only 8 are classed by WHO as innovative treatments that will add value to the current antibiotic treatment arsenal.

I asked Dr Mike Osterholm, director of CIDRAP to come on the show to share his thoughts on this alarming topic.