Enterobacteriaceae-associated infections, which are resistant to antibiotics, are occurring more frequently in U.S. children and are associated with longer hospital stays, according to a study published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.
Researchers analyzed data from 48 children's hospitals in the country, focusing on approximately 94,000 pediatric patients who were diagnosed with Enterobacteriaceae-associated infections between 2007 and 2015.
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The study shows that the proportion of infections, caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria from the Enterobacteriaceae family, rose to 1.5 percent in 2015 from 0.2 percent in 2007 — a more than 700 percent increase.
Additionally, the patients with these infections had hospitals stays that were 20 percent longer than patients with infections that were not resistant to antibiotics.
The infections were typically present in the patients when they were admitted to the hospital, which indicates that the antibiotic-resistant bacteria may be spreading at an increasing rate in the community. Children who are older, suffer from other health conditions and live in the western U.S. were more susceptible to acquiring the infection.
"Efforts to control this trend are urgently needed from all of us, such as using antibiotics only when necessary, and eliminating agricultural use of antibiotics in healthy animals," said study author Sharon B. Meropol, MD, PhD, of University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, both in Cleveland.