Dangerous multidrug-resistant infections are surging in children across the country, researchers report in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.
From 2007 to 2015, the number of kids treated in hospitals for certain types of multidrug-resistant infections rose 750 percent, researchers found. Though overall incidence is still low, researchers say the study’s findings are pointing to worrying trends—namely, silent spreading within communities, and severe, potentially life-threatening infections becoming common.
"The rate of rise was very rapid," the study’s lead author, pediatrician Sharon Meropol of Case Western Reserve University, told CIDRAP News. "And if that continues, it's not going to be long before we get much higher rates."
For the study, the researchers focused on infections caused by Enterobacteriaceae, which are a large group of bacteria. Some of them are common causes of infections, such as E. coli and Salmonella. Looking over records from 48 children’s hospitals around the country, the researchers picked out 107,610 hospital stays (involving 94,528 different patients from infants to less than 18) that included a diagnoses of an Enterobacteriaceae infection. Most of them were urinary tract infections caused by E. coli.
Overall, just 724 of those infections were caused by bacteria that could survive multiple types of antibiotic treatments. That’s just 0.7 percent of the infections. But the proportion increased over time. In 2007, only 0.2 percent of infections were multidrug-resistant. By 2015, the percentage hit 1.5—that's a 750 percent increase.
Kids with a multidrug-resistant infection had 20 percent longer stays in the hospital, the researchers noted.
But most kids didn’t become infected while they were in the hospital, where drug-resistant bacteria are known to develop and lurk among the vulnerable. Instead, 551 of the 724 multidrug-resistant infections—or 76 percent—were present in kids when they arrived at the hospital. This suggests that they became infected out in the community.
"Once these organisms are in the community, they will spread," Meropol said. "We can catch them anywhere."
Now more than ever, doctors need to be excellent stewards of antibiotics, she added. "Increasing antibiotic resistance is fairly inevitable the more we use them, but the more we are careful with their use… the more likely they'll be available when we really need them."