Study: Antibiotic Resistance Linked to Air Pollution

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Facts

  • According to a global study published Monday in The Lancet Planetary Health, antibiotic resistance among pathogenic bacterial infections may be linked to increased fine particle — or PM2·5 — air pollution.1
  • The researchers used a fixed-effect panel model to analyze public health data from 116 countries between 2000 and 2018 and evaluate the correlations between PM2·5 air pollution and aggregate antibiotic resistance.2
  • An analysis of more than 11.5M lab test results covering nine bacterial pathogens and 43 types of antibiotics revealed that with every 1% rise in PM2·5 air pollution, antibiotic resistance increased between 0.5% and 1.9%.3
  • The researchers warn that if PM2·5 air pollution levels continue to rise at the same rate, the level of antibiotic resistance worldwide will likely be about 17% higher in 2050.4
  • The study estimates that about 10M people could die due to diseases that cannot be treated by antibiotics by 2050. About 1.27M deaths were attributed to bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 2019.5
  • According to the WHO, antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health as many infections — including pneumonia and tuberculosis — are becoming more challenging to treat.6

Sources: 1Guardian, 2DOI, 3POLITICO, 4CNN, 5FT, and 6Euronews.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by The National. The new study is an alarming eye-opener. While the authors admit there are limitations to their research — including a lack of data from some low- and middle-income countries — the fact remains that curbing PM2.5 air pollution could significantly help reduce antibiotic resistance, prevent millions of deaths, and save economic costs stemming from antibiotic-resistant infections.
  • Narrative B, as provided by The Guardian. There is still a large amount of uncertainty in our understanding of the potential link between antibiotic resistance and air pollution, with the data at this stage still primarily observational — the findings must be further tested to examine why the two might be related and whether this analysis is accurate. As the main drivers of antibiotic resistance are still the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, the results should be taken with a bit of caution when applying them to specific regions.

Predictions