White House unveils the Anti-Superbug and plans to fight drug-resistant bacteria

USA, Washington – A five years roadmap has been unveiled by White House for federal agencies to fight the growing problem of drug-resistant bacteria. The plan which is reported to cost $1.2 billion is expected to act as a guide for the US government agencies, healthcare departments, and veterinary professionals.

This comes in the wake of several superbug outbreaks that have been said to be of high profile and which have sickened and killed patients. Two of these incidents have been linked to contaminated duodenoscopes.

On an estimate basis and according to data collected from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 23,000 deaths and 2 million illnesses have been linked to the drug-resistant bacteria on a yearly basis. The five year plan therefore comes in handy in outlining  critical actions to be taken by key federal departments and agencies in an effort to curtail the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Some of the goals that the plan has outlined includes:

• Slowing down the widespread of the resistant bacteria.
• Preventing the increase of resistant infections through the use of innovative diagnostic tests which apparently is one of the key goals.
• Improving national surveillance of the illnesses and speeding research and development of other related treatment methods.
• Encouraging international collaborations among other goals.

Researchers have embraced the use of new technologies in the development of rapid ‘point-of-need’ diagnostic tests which will be used to differentiate between viral and bacterial infections and ascertain bacterial drug predispositions. This is one of the innovations that is expected to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use significantly. As such a point-of-need diagnostic test should become available by 2020 according to the established target on the 63 pages plan.

The plan is also calling for the creation of Detect Network of AR Regional Laboratories which should be a regional public health network to be used in resistance testing. It has been established that the budget allocated to this move is double the previous amount which is expected to make the plan a success.