Gut bacteria in pre-school children are developing resistance to antibiotics

Health[1] Health[1]child health [2]Health [3]Denmark [4]Videnskab.dk [5] Scientists have studied gut bacteria in children and discovered that at least 21 per cent of the bacteria are resistant to one or more types of antibiotics. Just a few decades ago, doctors could not see any resistance among the many trillions of bacteria living in the human gut. But today even small children carry resistant gut bacteria according to a new study [6]. Stool samples from 174 Danish children shows that at least 21 per cent of the studied bacteria are resistant to one or more types of antibiotics. “We hadn’t counted on it being so bad among pre-schoolers. Unlike adults, children have not been exposed to antibiotics throughout a long life, so it’s both surprising and worrying that they are carrying resistant gut bacteria,” says Ulrik Stenz Justesen, a clinical lecturer and doctor with the Department of Clinical Microbiology at Odense University Hospital, Denmark. He emphasises that the new results are yet another symptom of the growing problem with antibiotic resistance, which the WHO characterises as one of the most serious threats to public health.