Hristio Boytchev – CORRECTIV

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Das TV-Team entnimmt Proben bei Hyderabad

A new TV documentary reveals that superbugs are multiplying in the polluted wastewater flowing from pharmaceutical plants in India

Journalists from NDR and infectious disease researchers from the University of Leipzig travelled to India to investigate the runoff at pharmaceutical factories. In water samples collected in Hyderabad, a city known for its pharmaceutical industry, they found high concentrations of antibiotics as well as antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The results of this research were published last week in the scientific journal Infection.

Super bugs

Less than half of antibiotics used in hospitals worldwide are prescribed appropriately, confirms a comprehensive new study

A new meta-analysis from a team of Cochrane scientists looked at 221 studies to assess the effectiveness and safety of interventions which try to improve how doctors prescribe antibiotics to in-patients. The analysis also identified ways of reducing unnecessary use of antibiotics in hospitals.

Super bugs

Sloppy hygiene in hospitals causes more deaths than road traffic accidents

More than a quarter of hospitals in Germany were not meeting hygiene recommendations in 2014, according to new research by CORRECTIV and the ARD magazine "Plusminus". The Berlin Ministry of Health puts the responsibility on federal states and individual clinics. The board of the health insurance company BKK has criticised what it calls "serious deficits".

Graveyard: 10 million people will supposedly die of drug-resistant germs

Super bugs

Projected death toll from drug-resistant superbugs ‘based on incomplete data and flawed assumptions’

An official estimate of the massive number of deaths that will be caused each year by antimicrobial resistance – and cited widely by the UN and world leaders – is “unreliable” and “undermines” the fight against superbugs, a new scientific study has warned.

Super bugs

More antibiotics, more resistant germs

In some southern European countries, doctors prescribe three times as many antibiotics as in Northern Europe. There is no medical explanation for these dramatic differences within the EU. However, high consumption levels can be highly dangerous: because where many antibiotics are taken, resistant germs are more frequent, as recent data from the EU authority on infectious diseases shows.

Abwasser in Fluss in der indischen Stadt Hyderabad

Super bugs

50,000 call for German health insurance to boycott dirty antibiotics manufacturers

"Stop superkeys, clean up your supply chains!" This is the demand of an online petition, aimed at German health insurance companies. They let antibiotics be produced in India. By companies, which sometimes do not clear their wastewater of antibiotic remnants – thus triggering the growth of resistnant germs. Yet the health insurance companies don’t see themselves responsible.

Super bugs

Antibiotics in the water

British environmentalists are alarmed. Close to Indian pharmaceutical plants they have found high numbers of resistant bacteria. They blame remnants of antibiotics in the water. We have asked experts to evaluate the finding.

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Lost life

Each year around 2.6 million Europeans are infected in hospital, and roughly 90,000 die. This has been discovered in a wide-ranging study, led by Alessandro Cassini from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

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Treasures straight out of our nose

In the nose of all places, where resistant MRSA-bacteria are likely to be found, the researcher Andreas Peschel and his team have discovered an antibiotic that kills MRSA-bacteria.

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Fear of Bacteria

A report is circulating saying that ten million people are going to die in the future due to resistances against antibiotics. The number is wrong. It is grounded in the exaggeration of a British study which, in turn, is working with overstatement. Distortion has become symptomatic within this topic. An analysis.

Super bugs

Constant threat

Israel has endured several heavy outbreaks of resistant germs. The nation’s response has been exemplary. Despite the peculiarities, other countries are following its model.

Super bugs

Where the MRSA pigs live

MRSA is arguably the most well-known of the resistant bacteria. Many people even have them on their skin without even knowing it. However, it is only when the bacterium gets into the body through an open wound that it becomes dangerous. In hospitals, MRSA can cause severe wound infections in patients with weakened immune systems or after surgery.