Drug Resistant Bacteria on the Rise in Children

A strain of bacteria that is highly resistant to traditional antibiotics has been infecting young children at an increasingly alarming rate over the past few years, according to new research out from the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois.

The bacterium in question, Enterobacteriaceae is a drug-resistant Gram-negative bacterium that has proven extremely resistant to most antibiotics used to treat infections. Worse, this bacterium produces an enzyme -- identified extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) -- in the human body that hinders the effectiveness of many strong antibiotics, protecting its fellow bacteria -- both harmless and harmful -- as well.

Thankfully, Enterobacteriaceae is considered a very rare type of bacterium, prevalent in less than 1 percent of the U.S. population.

However, according to a new study published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, the prevalence of this bacteria among children has increased by more than three-fold between 1999 and 2011.

In an analysis of children under the age of 18 by approximately 300 laboratories, 369,398 pediatric isolates were identified. Of the isolates, 0.47 percent of them were identified as ESBL enzyme producers.

Interestingly, well over half of the children who were infected with ESBL producing bacteria were between one and five years old. The researchers also found that the number of these young children that were infected rose considerably each year. In 1999, the labs reported that only 0.28 percent of the children with bacterial infections exhibited signs of ESBL producing bacteria. However, by 2011, that number had tripled, with 0.92 percent of the children showing signs of the ESBL enzyme.

This data helps validate a growing concern of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials. Just earlier this month, the CDC released a report warming the American public that the current overuse of antibiotics in the pediatric setting is putting children at greater risk of contracting infections of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Other drug-resistant bacteria have also reared their ugly heads in the last decade, including a particularly resistant strain of tuberculosis that the World Health Organization is currently combating.

The study was published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society on March 19.