Bacterial infections second leading cause of death worldwide

This study, published in the Lancet, selected around thirty bacteria – the most commonly involved in infections – and assessed how many deaths were associated with them.

These measurements are carried out within the framework of the Global Burden of Disease. This vast research program, funded by the Bill Gates Foundation, is of an unparalleled scale, involving several thousand researchers in most countries of the world.

Finally, “deaths associated with these bacteria are the second leading cause of death worldwide“After coronary heart disease, which includes infarctions in particular, conclude the authors.

With 7.7 million deaths linked to a bacterial infection, one in eight deaths can be attributed to them, even if these figures date back to 2019, before the Covid pandemic.

Of the thirty or so bacteria selected, five alone account for more than half of the deaths: staphylococcus aureus, E. coli, pneumococcus, Klebsellia pneumoniae and bacillus pyocyanin.

Staphylococcus aureus is “the leading bacterial cause of death in 135 countries“, says the study.

In the youngest – under five years old – however, it is pneumococcal infections that prove to be the most deadly.

For the researchers, these results illustrate how bacterial infections are a “urgent priority” in matters of public health.

They call for work on the prevention of infections, better use of antibiotics – in particular to avoid resistance phenomena – and more effective use of vaccination.