Superbugs could cause more deaths than cancer

Infections caused by bacteria multiresistant to antibiotics, popularly known as “superbacteria“, represent a “growing threat” to global health. If their expansion is not stopped, in 2050 they could cause more deaths than cancer, according to Laboratory Medicine professionals who are meeting from November 12 to 14 in Valencia, in the XIX National Clinical Laboratory Congress (LABCLIN 2025), organized by the Spanish Society of Laboratory Medicine (SEMEDLAB).

During the meeting, the spread of bacteria capable of resisting multiple antibiotics is addressed, which makes treatments difficult, increases mortality and raises hospital costs.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO)infections by resistant bacteria could cause up to 10 million deaths annually throughout the world if control, prevention and development measures of new drugs are not intensified.

In 2024, the WHO published a document on research priorities for the development of new antibiotics active against multidrug-resistant bacteria. At a first level, he classified critical priority to bacteria like Acinetobacter resistant to carbapenems, enterobacteria resistant to carbapenems or to cephalosporins third generation and Mycobacterium rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis.

A second high priority level includes carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), among others. Furthermore, some of these multidrug-resistant bacteria may contain a greater number of virulence determinants, which increases their pathogenicity.

“We are in a real race against time. Although in recent years several new antibiotics with activity against some of these superbacteria have become available, strains resistant even to these latest generation therapies have already been identified,” said Dr. Luis Martínez Martínez, Head of the Microbiology Service at the Reina Sofía University Hospital of Córdoba and speaker at LABCLIN 2025 on ‘Multiresistant bacteria and superbacteria. New challenges in Microbiology’.

In Spain, the figures are “equally worrying”, the organization has pointed out. He National Plan against Antibiotic Resistance (PRAN), promoted by the Ministry of Health and the AEMPS, estimates that infections due to resistant bacteria cause more than 4,000 deaths annually in Spain and generate an additional health cost of more than 150 million euros.

Although the consumption of antibiotics in humans and animals has been reduced in recent years, those responsible for PRAN insist that it is necessary to maintain active surveillance, promote responsible use and reinforce research to avoid a setback.