WHO wants new drugs against 12 antibiotics-resistant super-germs

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged governments, scientists and pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs to tackle 12 antibiotics-resistant super-germs threatening an explosion of incurable diseases.
This is for the first time, WHO has published a list of bacteria threatening to turn once easily-treatable infections into incurable diseases. It held that antibiotics may not be ready in time if it is left on market forces alone.

Key Facts

• WHO described these antibiotics-resistant super-germs as “priority pathogens” as they are greatest threats to human health. They are no longer respond to an ever-growing list of ineffective antibiotics.
• They were targeted based on the severity of disease they cause how many drugs still work against them, how easily they spread and how many new ones are already being developed.
• WHO divided these 12 “priority pathogens” into three categories of new medicine priority: critical, high and medium.
• The high and medium priority categories include drug-resistant bacteria that cause more common diseases such as gonorrhea and salmonella-induced food poisoning which hit poor countries particularly hard.
• These 12 germs cause ailments including blood, lung, brain, and urinary tract infections, food poisoning from salmonella and gonorrhoea.
• The most urgent section contained three bacteria families resistant to carbapenem antibiotics which are last-resort treatment for many life-threatening infections.

About World Health Organization (WHO)

WHO is a specialized agency of the UN that is concerned with international public health. It was established in April 1948. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It is member of the United Nations Development Group. It is responsible for the World Health Report, a leading international publication on health, the worldwide World Health Survey.

Month: Current Affairs - March, 2017