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Human and Economic Costs

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The End of an Antibiotic Era

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Abstract

The costs of infections caused by (multi)resistant microbes are considerable, in terms of both disease burden and mortality and in economic terms. Studies carried out throughout the world reveal an increased risk of mortality or poor outcome for patients with an infection caused by a resistant bug. They also find an increase in length of stay in hospitals and an increase in hospital costs. Besides these direct costs infections by (multi)resistant bugs are responsible for huge societal costs in terms of premature death and lost productivity. Investments in infection prevention are proven effective not only in reducing human costs as a result of infections, but also in reducing their economic costs.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    More information on this outbreak of an ESBL-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae at the Bremen-Mitte Clinic can be found in Chap. 7, ‘The end in sight?’

  2. 2.

    Oxygen can be administered via a face mask by pressing a balloon. This is referred to as ‘inflation’.

  3. 3.

    The margin of error for these figures remains large, since it is a reference measurement. The number of patients with healthcare-associated infections is between 4.5 and 7.4 per cent. On the basis of studies in the literature, in 2008 the ECDC estimated that 37,000 people died of HAIs every year in the EU, Norway and Iceland, of which 25,000 died of infections through multiresistant germs (ECDC 2008). In its first report, published in 2014, the O’Neill Commission estimates that the total global death toll due to antimicrobial resistance is 700,000 deaths a year (O’Neill 2014). For further information on the O’Neill Commission, see Chap. 11.

  4. 4.

    By ‘surveillance’ we mean collecting data on the prevalence of resistant bacteria.

  5. 5.

    Particularly for the epidemiology of infectious diseases. Since 2016, Professor Grundmann has been responsible for infection prevention and hospital epidemiology at the University Hospital of Freiburg, Germany. He is Honorary Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

  6. 6.

    Clostridium difficile (C. diff.) is a Gram-positive, bacillary intestinal bacterium. Disturbances to the intestinal flora caused by the use of antibiotics can lead to excessive growth of C. diff., which can cause severe diarrhoea. At the VUmc in Amsterdam, a dog (beagle) was trained to smell the bacteria. A smaller study (Bomers et al. 2012) has yielded very promising results. The dog proved a good bloodhound.

  7. 7.

    PREventie van InfectieZIEkten door Surveillance (Prevention of infectious diseases by surveillance).

  8. 8.

    The Robert Koch Institute estimated in 2011 that the number of healthcare-associated infections is between 400,000 and 600,000 per year. In May 2011, the German Society of Hospital Hygiene, the Society of Hygiene, Environmental Medicine and Preventative Medicine, and the Federal Association of Public Health Service Doctors declared in a report for the Bundestag Health Committee that the figures quoted by the RKI were far too low. These professional associations assume that the figure is at least 700,000 HAIs annually (Bundestag 2011). November 2019 the RKI again estimated the annual number of HAIs between 400,000 and 600,000 and the number of attributable deaths between 10,000 and 15,000 (Zacher et al. 2019).

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  1. Dutch Broadcasting Foundation (NOS), Hilversum, The Netherlands

    Rinke van den Brink

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van den Brink, R. (2021). Human and Economic Costs. In: The End of an Antibiotic Era. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70723-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70723-1_3

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