Earlier this year, an antibiotic resistant E. coli strain infected the second U.S. patient, leaving many to worry about antibiotics' effectiveness in combating serious infections.
Antibiotic resistant is a growing and a very costly issue plaguing the United States, according to National Institute of Health's US National Library of Medicine.
Here are six statistics on antibiotic resistance:
1. A 2011 IDSA Emerging Infections Network survey found more than 60 percent of surveyed infectious-disease specialists had seen a pan-resistant, untreatable bacterial infection within the prior year.
2. Each year, almost two million Americans develop healthcare-acquired infections.
3. HAIS cause 99,000 deaths in the nation each year. Antibacterial-resistant pathogens cause most of these deaths.
4. Sepsis and pneumonia caused nearly 50,000 U.S. deaths in 2006. These two HAIs cost the U.S. healthcare system more than $8 million in 2006.
5. Antibiotic-resistant infections lengthen patients' hospital days by an average of 6.4 days to 12.7 days.
6. Antibiotic-resistant infections cost the U.S. economy nearly $20 billion in healthcare costs and $35 billion each year lost productivity, estimates project.
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