No Bugs, No Interest? How Public Search Queries for "ESKAPE" Pathogens Change Over Time

No Bugs, No Interest? How Public Search Queries for "ESKAPE" Pathogens Change Over Time

Introduction

In July 2004, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) released a report called "Bad Bugs, No Drugs." This report identified several species of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that were expected to play a lead role in the next global health crisis to come. The authors cited a high prevalence of drug-resistant infections--362,000 in the US in 2002--and lack of new antibiotics in development as warning signs. Twelve years have passed since the report published, and according to the CDC, >2 million people become infected and >23,000 die from drug-resistant infections every year. A 2009 paper by Boucher et al implicated six actors from their pathology, persistence, and presence in US hospitals: Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacter. They termed them "ESKAPE" pathogens.

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