Congress can fight antibiotic resistance by funding programs to curb unnecessary prescriptions, speeding up the drug development process and improving testing to determine whether a patient has a virus or a bacterial infection, federal government health experts said Tuesday.
They spoke at a hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee on the U.S. public health response to antibiotic resistance.
In fiscal 2016, Congress allocated more than $830 million to address antibiotic resistance and the White House has requested $1.1 billion for fiscal 2017.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said that request should be approved and the funding must continue in the years to come. “This is not an issue we can address for a few years and then ignore,” he said.
A provision that provides for the approval of drugs used for a “limited population” of patients in order to address increases in bacterial resistance was included in the 21st Century Cures Act, which passed the House last year.
Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), the panel's ranking member, said she hopes the Senate will see the need for the legislation and quickly approve its version of 21st Century Cures. “Maybe this urgent issue can be used to get members to enact this important law,” she said.
At least 1 in 3 antibiotic prescriptions in the U.S. is unnecessary, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and this overuse accelerates the rise of antimicrobial-resistant infections commonly called “superbugs.”
A few weeks ago, researchers reported the first U.S. case of a pathogen with a mutated gene resistant to the last line of antibiotic medicine and said it is the “emergence of a truly pan-drug-resistant bacteria.”
Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration, said there are some promising drugs in the pipeline, but economic and scientific barriers remain troublesome. A wide variety of new antibiotics are needed, not just a few blockbuster drugs.
“Drug development in this area remains fragile and weak,” she said.
Rapid testing that can tell doctors whether a patient is suffering from a virus that should not be treated with antibiotics—or a bacterial infection that may need to be—would help cut down on unneeded use of antibiotics, Woodcock said.
Dr. Richard Hatchett, acting director of HHS' Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, said the focus should be on the early stages of the pipeline, when small research companies and academic centers struggle to pursue innovative ideas with scarce resources.
The health officials emphasized that antibiotic resistance is a worldwide problem that must be addressed everywhere, including developing countries.
Dr. Beth Bell, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the CDC, said the agency is working with European countries to pool resources and share information on antibiotic resistance. The World Health Organization is also participating.
“Any use anywhere can potentially affect any one of us,” she said.
