Brussels, 17/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - To mark the seventh European Antibiotic Awareness Day, on 18 November, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has released its latest EU-wide data on antibiotic resistance. Every year, the countries of the European Union submit statistics on antibiotic resistance to the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-Net) and information on consumption of antibiotics to the European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption Network (ESAC-Net). Both of these networks form part of the ECDC.
The data published in the latest ECDC report reveal, in 2013 for the first time, resistance to colistin, a last-line medicine against germs that are multi-resistant to antibiotics. This is a “truly alarming” situation, says Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis. “Antimicrobial resistance is one of the most pressing public health issues of our time”, in his view. He pledges, therefore to prioritise it throughout his five-year term of office. “Resistance against colistin is already reported in some countries in Europe and this is a worrying development. With a smaller number of effective antibiotics, we are gradually returning to the 'pre-antibiotic era', when bacterial diseases could not be treated and most patients would die from their infection because there was no effective treatment”, warns ECDC Director, Dr Marc Sprenger. The full report on development of antibiotic resistance is available on the ECDC site (http://www.ecdc.europa.eu ). (IL)