Byline: HOLLY TAYLOR Staff writer
The emergence of drug-resistant bacteria poses a problem of global proportions, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.
``It is a major global problem that must be dealt with from a global perspective,'' said Dr. David Satcher, head of the CDC and the nominee for Surgeon General.
The overuse of antibiotics has contributed to the growth in bacteria that defy treatment, Satcher told about 75 officials gathered for the five-day Northeast Regional Public Health Leadership Institute at the Rensselaerville Institute.
In the United States, 30 to 35 percent of the pneumococcus found in children's upper respiratory illnesses is now resistant to penicillin, he noted.
The CDC has urged physicians to use antibiotics more conservatively and stop dispensing them to patients for the common cold, which can't be treated.
It also is urging hospitals to isolate patients who develop resistant infections so they can't spread.
Satcher told the officials that in their public health careers, they must respond quickly to crises -- from the ebola virus in Africa to the plague in India to the hanta virus in the American Southwest -- and manage with limited dollars because the benefits of public health prevention are often overlooked.
``We spend nearly a trillion dollars on health care in our country, but less than 1 percent is spent on population-based prevention that has saved so many lives,'' he said.
It cost $32 million to eradicate small pox, and the development of the HIB vaccine for toddlers reduced the number of Influenza B cases in a decade from 20,000 a year to 250 a year and the resulting deaths from 1,000 to less than 10, Satcher noted.
