Superbug Infections, Deaths Significantly Increased During Pandemic: CDC

Health care workers tend to a patient with COVID-19 in Apple Valley, Calif., on Jan. 11, 2021. Ariana Drehsler/AFP/Getty Images

U.S. hospitals saw a surge in superbug infections and deaths during the ​​COVID-19 pandemic—a setback of progress in combating antimicrobial resistance in recent years—according to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Superbugs refer to bacteria and fungi that have become resistant to commonly used antibiotics and other medications to treat the infections they cause.

In a new report (pdf) released on July 12, researchers found the pandemic caused at least 15 percent increases in both resistant hospital-onset infections and deaths in 2020.

Although public health efforts had brought down antimicrobial-resistant deaths in hospitals by nearly 30 percent between 2012 and 2017, the pandemic has pushed health care facilities, health departments, and communities “near their breaking points in 2020,” CDC head Rochelle Walensky wrote in the report.

“After years of steady reductions in healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), U.S. hospitals saw significantly higher rates for four out of six types of HAIs in 2020. Many of these HAIs are resistant to antibiotics or antifungals,” the report reads, citing a 2021 study.

Patients required more frequent and prolonged use of catheters and ventilators, which increased the risk of HAIs and the spread of pathogens, especially under personal protective equipment and lab supply challenges, reduced staff, and longer lengths of stay, according to the report.

In 2020, at least nearly 30,000 people died of superbug infections commonly associated with health care, CDC found after monitoring 18 drug-resistant bugs nationwide.

A healthcare worker looks out from a window in the door to the COVID-19 Unit at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas, on July 2, 2020. Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images

“One of the knock-on effects of COVID ... is with these antibiotic-resistant infections, infections that are very difficult to treat, in some cases untreatable, with very high rates of mortality,” The Washington Post quoted CDC’s Arjun Srinivasan, who leads the agency’s prevention efforts to control superbugs.

He said some patients who recovered from COVID died from a drug-resistant infection.

The study found the pandemic also impacted antibiotic prescribing. “We saw a significant increase in antimicrobial use, difficulty in following infection prevention and control guidance,” Walensky said.

Although several studies had shown that COVID patients were rarely infected with bacteria when they were first admitted to a hospital, almost 80 percent received an antibiotic from March 2020 to October 2020.

Those life-saving drugs, which destroy bacteria but not viruses, would give patients no benefit and even put them at risk for side effects, according to the report.