The great superbug surge

Hospital superbugs are on the rise again as healthcare staff struggle to cope with crowded A&E departments and over-full wards. What can be done to tackle these frightening HAIs, asks Essity’s Liam Mynes?

It seems as though it was a long time ago that the topic of MRSA dominated our healthcare news. MRSA - or methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus - became the scourge of our hospitals in the 1990s and early 2000s. But cases of this ‘superbug’ were eventually brought under control due to a combination of enhanced screening and a better understanding of how it can be prevented. And of course, the issue of superbugs was completely overshadowed by the onset of COVID-19. However, the problem has certainly not gone away.

In fact, according to the UK Health Security Agency, the number of cases of MRSA rose by 35% in the UK in 2021 - the largest annual increase ever recorded. And in June this year a new study found that a highly antibiotic-resistant strain of MRSA was emerging in livestock, probably due to the widespread use of antibiotics in pig farming. Cases of livestockassociated MRSA currently make up only a small fraction of MRSA cases in human populations. But the numbers are increasing - and this is thought to be a worrying sign.

MRSA is not the only source of concern, however. According to a 2022 study by the University of Oxford, around 1.2 million deaths globally are caused by antibiotic resistance each year with experts predicting that this figure will only grow.

C.Difficile, like MRSA, has generally faded from public awareness over recent years. But clusters of the condition still occurfor example, an outbreak was recorded at Vancouver’s Royal Columbian Hospital in July 2020 while a second group of cases emerged at California’s Port Moody Hospital in December of the same year.