In this report, Misbah Khan of the UK-based The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, exposes how neonatal sepsis poses a major threat to newborns in Nigeria and Ethiopia amidst global antibiotic resistance.
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Doctors had treated her with so-called “first-line” antibiotics – drugs that are used on infections in the first instance – but they hadn’t worked. As they cycled through other types of antibiotics, her condition continued to deteriorate. And the drugs were expensive. Even if the doctors did find one that could save Yusra’s life, her mother might not be able to afford it.
The problem is not confined to Africa. Around the world, the rate of resistance is growing and doctors on every continent are having to contend with infections that are nearly impossible to treat. But it’s patients like Yusra who are hit hardest. Almost a century later, we now have more than 100 types of antibiotics. Some only kill specific bacteria while others work against a wider range. All have saved countless lives across the world. But Fleming’s warning has not been heeded.
With no information to go on, they took a shot in the dark and prescribed Adonias the antibiotics most commonly used for sepsis. When days passed without them taking effect, Adonias was rushed eight hours to Dessie, his mother by his side. In Adonias’s case, the second-line antibiotics seemed to be working. He was feeding more regularly and required less oxygen. But without testing there was no way to be certain.On the other side of the continent, in a neonatal ward in Lagos, lay Eniyoha, a week-old baby who had been abandoned by her parents at a hospital.
While the hospital didn’t have the means to test every baby for infection, it now had a cheat sheet: a list of antibiotics with a higher chance of success in treating these infections. This removed some of the guesswork, saving valuable time in the race to save lives. The standard approach, then, is to try the cheaper ones first. But if these fail, and a baby needs to be put onto so-called “last-resort” antibiotics such as meropenem, then the costs fall outside of the hospital’s budget. And a full course of treatment – around 20 vials – can cost five times as much as an average person earns in an entire month.
If not properly sanitised, the equipment is at risk of contamination by the bacteria that cause these fatal infections. “We need different ways of looking at infection prevention and controls in the hospital setting,” Strysko said. There is an added difficulty if hospitals do not have access to clean water.In the neonatal ward in Lagos, the doctors’ cheat sheet had done its job: Eniyoha’s infection cleared. Social services are now trying to trace her parents.
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