Bloomberg Opinion Profile picture
Jan 28, 2022 15 tweets 8 min read Read on X
We’re already fighting the next global health emergency: Growing antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Common ailments such as UTIs and sepsis are increasingly able to tough out the drugs developed against them. Some develop into superbugs that defy treatment trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Antimicrobials is the catch-all term for the many antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and other drugs that prevent infections in:

🙆🏽Humans
🦓Animals
🌱Plants
trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Pathogens naturally develop resistance to antimicrobials as they evolve, but thanks to an overuse of antibiotics and other conditions, the speed of such resistance has become a major global health issue trib.al/Z4TUOmz
It’s hard to overstate the urgency of the challenge:

Covid-19 has resulted in some 5.6 million deaths, but previous estimates have said AMR will claim 10 million lives annually by 2050 — and that figure already looks low trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Drug-resistant infections are already killing more people globally than malaria and HIV combined.

In the U.S. alone, there are some 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections annually and over 35,000 people die as a result trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Global estimates of the burden of antimicrobial resistance confirm the worst fears:

In 2019, nearly 1.3 million deaths were directly attributed to infections that were drug-resistant and more than 4.9 million deaths were related to drug resistance trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Nearly 79% of the deaths were attributed to three syndromes:

⚕️Lower respiratory and thorax infections
⚕️Bloodstream infections
⚕️Intra-abdominal infections
trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Better education, sanitation, surveillance and diagnostics are all urgent — and our experience with Covid should help us.

If fewer people get infections in the first place, fewer antibiotics are needed and there’s a lower prospect for drug-resistance trib.al/Z4TUOmz
New drugs also need to be part of the solution.

While there are science challenges here, warped incentives when it comes to developing commercializing new drugs explain why there have been no truly new antibiotics in the past 30 years trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Drugs are commercially successful if pharma companies can make enough money on them to recoup their development.

The cost of developing an antibiotic is an estimated $1.5 billion, while average revenue is estimated at around $46 million a year trib.al/Z4TUOmz
An ironic twist is that doctors are discouraged from prescribing new antibiotics unless absolutely necessary.

This drives down sales and discourages investment. The price of new antibiotics also looks uncompetitive when compared to existing generics trib.al/Z4TUOmz
Of 15 new FDA-approved antibiotics in the past decade to 2020, 5 were shelved.

18 were approved and launched in the G7 and other European countries in that time, but the majority were accessible in only three nations — Britain, the U.S. and Sweden trib.al/Z4TUOmz
The challenge is ensuring access to medicines without encouraging overprescription.

A number of countries are trying to address the issue. In the U.K., a pilot program uses a Netflix model, paying for antimicrobials via a subscription trib.al/Z4TUOmz
There may be glimmers of hope on the scientific front.

Earlier this week, a group of Australian scientists said they found a way to defeat superbugs using treatments combining nanoparticles (ultrafine particles) with antibiotics trib.al/Z4TUOmz
The pandemic has taught us about the high cost of delayed action to global health crises — and the enormous gains to be made when scientific innovation is incentivized.

Our next test is to see whether we can remember those lessons trib.al/Z4TUOmz

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Bloomberg Opinion

Bloomberg Opinion Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @opinion

Mar 17, 2023
📉 VCs causing the downfall of SVB
💰 Credit Suisse’s pricey lifeline
🚐 RVs predicting the future

🧵 Catch up on the week in news with @ALampietti’s round up of our must-see videos
If venture capitalists had stayed calm, would #SVB be OK today?

🎥 @kylascan has all the answers
What’s next for Credit Suisse? 🇨🇭

@PaulJDavies explains bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Read 6 tweets
Mar 15, 2023
Credit Suisse is in crisis.

What went wrong? So, so much.

🧵 Let’s take a look
We *just* learned that #SVB’s downfall was announcing it was raising equity without having buyers lined up, says @matt_levine.

So why would Credit Suisse’s biggest shareholder announce they would “absolutely not” put more money into the embattled bank? trib.al/aS9oy3I Image
After Saudi National Bank ruled out providing more assistance, #CreditSuisse closed down 24% at 1.697 Swiss francs per share, its lowest closing price on record trib.al/nnFD2F8 Image
Read 10 tweets
Mar 2, 2023
If health is wealth, America is dirt-poor.

The health-care crisis in the US isn’t just a tragedy for individuals. It makes it harder for the country to be productive and secure.

🧵 Let’s look at the data
The most vivid sign of the health crisis is falling life expectancy, says @adwooldridge bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
There’s perhaps no greater metaphor for this crisis than the unhealthy discourse around Ozempic, writes @JKarl26.

A culture built on dieting is not a proper remedy for what ails us bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Read 8 tweets
Feb 28, 2023
📊 3 charts you need to see 📊

💰 Elon Musk is back on top
🇨🇳 Don’t panic over China’s “farm invasion”
⚡️ Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has dramatically redrawn the world’s energy map

Subscribe to Bloomberg Opinion Today for more trib.al/BNqIxPf
💰 Elon Musk is the world’s richest person again.

The billionaire has turned Tesla’s failing into winning bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
🇨🇳 No need to panic over a “farm invasion”.

China doesn’t own nearly enough land to cause a food crisis bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Read 4 tweets
Feb 28, 2023
💸🪙 It’s one of the most revolutionary and over-hyped inventions of the 21st century.

And the Winklevoss twins are at the center of it.

This week’s Crash Course dives into the most recent meltdown in the crypto world iheart.com/podcast/1119-c… Image
Our special guest this week is @LionelRALaurent, a financial columnist covering crypto from Europe.

At one point, he explains its rise and fall in under 30 seconds iheart.com/podcast/1119-c…
The Winklevoss twins embody the sort of collision #BloombergCrashCourse lives for: between innovation and possible hucksterism, and between authenticity and possible manipulation bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Read 5 tweets
Feb 6, 2023
Joe Biden has now been president of the world’s largest economy for two years 🇺🇸 So how’s he doing?

Bloomberg @opinion columnists took a look at the strengths and weaknesses of his first two years in office.

🧵👇 Here’s what that looks like in data bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-…
💰 Jobs & Wages

Biden is on his way to becoming the greatest jobs-producing president in US history.

But wage growth isn’t keeping up with inflation, and if this doesn’t change, voters won't give him credit for all the jobs created.

@karlbykarlsmith bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-…
📈 Inflation

Investor expectations are historically a good predictor of consumer prices.

Biden may be presiding over the worst cost-of-living rise in decades, but the trend increasingly is his friend with unemployment at 50-year lows.

@Matthew_Winkler bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-…
Read 12 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(