Matej Mikulic
Research expert covering health, pharma & medtech
Antibiotic use in Italy - Statistics & Facts
Antibiotics are a type of drug used to fight infections caused by bacteria in humans and animals. In 1928, professor of bacteriology Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic, penicillin, and since then, many other types of antibiotics have been introduced for medical use. Although antibiotics can save lives and their discovery was a revolution in the medical field contributing to lowering mortality rates, they also accelerate the natural development of bacteria resistance to antibiotics, putting at risk achievements obtained by their introduction. In 2019, the estimated number of deaths associated with bacterial antimicrobial resistance in Italy, amounted to almost 36 thousand. Furthermore, deaths directly attributable to bacterial antimicrobial resistance totaled roughly nine thousand. In both cases, Escherichia coli (E. coli) was the deadliest pathogen. Bacteremia, defined as the presence of bacteria in the bloodstream, is one of the infections that can become extremely difficult to cure and potentially fatal in case of infection due to bacteria resistant to antibiotics. In Italy, the number of bacteremia cases caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria amounted to 3,056 in 2022, most of which occurred in men.
