Antibiotic Resistance Rising in Children, Study Finds
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- Murdoch Children's Research Institute and University of Sydney researchers analyzed 106,581 infection samples from children up to 18 years old across 82 countries, finding antibiotic resistance increased in every region between 2004 and 2022, with babies, ICU patients, and lower-resource countries hit hardest.
- Acinetobacter baumannii carried the highest level of drug resistance among pathogens studied, while Klebsiella recorded the fastest increase in resistance — particularly in southeast Asia, eastern Europe, and the western Pacific.
- Statistical modeling projects resistance to last-line antibiotics will reach 82% for Acinetobacter baumannii and 35% for Klebsiella by 2035.
- Under the WHO's three-tier antibiotic classification, first-line "access" resistance is stabilizing in high-income regions but rising sharply for critical "watch" and "reserve" drugs in lower-resource settings.
- Harry Booth, a 13-year-old Australian kidney transplant recipient, has had repeated hospital stays for infections resistant to common antibiotics, requiring IV alternatives his mother describes as demanding and disruptive to school.
- The research team launched the AMR in Kids website to provide region- and pathogen-specific resistance forecasts to 2035, aiming to inform treatment decisions and identify emerging threats.
- Penelope Bryant, MCRI associate professor and one of Harry's doctors, said resistance is rising not just in severe diseases like sepsis but also in simple childhood UTIs, and that children have been largely overlooked in global antibiotic resistance surveillance.
Why it matters: For pediatricians in wealthy countries, the projected 82% last-line resistance in Acinetobacter baumannii by 2035 means increasingly turning to harder-to-access, more toxic, and more expensive drugs. In low-income countries — where drug-resistant infections are already a leading killer of under-fives — treatable childhood illness is becoming a two-tier problem.
