Drug-resistant typhoid on the rise, spreading globally at alarming rate: study
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A recent study has raised serious global health concerns over the rapid emergence and international spread of extensively drug-resistant (XDR) typhoid fever.
Caused by the ancient bacterium Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi), typhoid fever has plagued humanity for centuries.
Now, researchers warn that modern medicine is losing its grip on treating this deadly disease.
Published in 2022, the study highlights how S. Typhi is evolving at an alarming pace, with drug-resistant strains increasingly outcompeting those still susceptible to antibiotics.
As of now, antibiotics remain the only effective treatment for typhoid fever. But over the past 30 years, resistance to widely used oral antibiotics has become more common - and more dangerous.
Analysing the genetic sequences of 3,489 S. Typhi samples collected between 2014 and 2019 from South Asian countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal, researchers found a notable surge in XDR strains.
These superbugs are resistant not only to older drugs such as ampicillin, chloramphenicol, and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, but are also increasingly resistant to more advanced antibiotics like fluoroquinolones and third-generation cephalosporins.
Making matters worse, these highly resistant forms of typhoid are not contained within regional borders.
Since 1990, nearly 200 cases of international transmission have been recorded. While South Asia remains the epicenter, XDR S. Typhi strains have now reached parts of Southeast Asia, East and Southern Africa, and even Western nations including the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.
Lead author Dr. Jason Andrews of Stanford University stressed the urgency of global collaboration: "The speed at which highly-resistant strains of S. Typhi have emerged and spread in recent years is a real cause for concern, and highlights the need to urgently expand prevention measures, particularly in countries at greatest risk. At the same time, the fact resistant strains of S. Typhi have spread internationally so many times also underscores the need to view typhoid control, and antibiotic resistance more generally, as a global rather than local problem."
