by Claudia Boyd-Barrett posted in Parenting

Here?s another reason to do your part in fighting antibiotic resistance: a skyrocketing number of kids are getting ?superbug? infections that can?t be treated with most antibiotics.
Researchers analyzed data on almost 94,000 children treated at hospitals nationwide between 2007 and 2015 for infections caused by a family of bacteria known as enterobacteriaceae. During the study period, the proportion of these infections resistant to multiple kinds of antibiotics surged a whopping 700 percent.
Granted, antibiotic-resistant enterobacteriaceae infections are still relatively rare: 1.5 percent in 2015 compared to 0.2 percent in 2007. But the upward trend is clear. Experts warn the problem will get steadily worse without action to stem unnecessary antibiotic use in agriculture and healthcare. Antibiotic-resistant infections are dangerous. The study, published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, found that kids with antibiotic-resistant enterobacteriaceae infections stayed 20 percent longer in the hospital than kids with infections that responded to antibiotics. They were likely also at greater risk of death, the researchers said.

In the past, people typically contracted these infections in the hospital. But about two-thirds of the kids in the study got the antibiotic-resistant infections before they arrived at the hospital. This suggests the infections are spreading into communities, the study authors noted.
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