‘Superbug’ spread in hospitals, ICU mortality tops 90% among infected patients

A recent study by the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) has raised alarm over the rapid spread of antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” in the country’s hospital intensive care units (ICUs), revealing that more than 90 percent of critically ill patients who developed these infections died.

However, the research also found that strengthening infection prevention and control measures can dramatically reduce both infections and deaths.

The findings were disclosed in an icddr,b statement issued on Saturday (July 25), based on two separate studies conducted at a government tertiary hospital in Dhaka.

The first study, published in the journal Microbiology Spectrum, followed 373 critically ill adult patients admitted to the ICU between July 2023 and February 2024. Funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the research focused on four major antibiotic-resistant bacteria—Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa—which commonly cause pneumonia, bloodstream, urinary tract and wound infections.

Researchers found that of the 198 patients who were free of these bacteria at admission, 105—more than half—became infected while receiving treatment in the ICU. Genome sequencing confirmed that bacteria carried by patients later developed into life-threatening hospital-acquired infections. Among confirmed cases, the mortality rate exceeded 90 percent.

icddr,b Assistant Scientist and lead author Gazi Md Salahuddin Mamun said patients were monitored from admission until discharge, allowing researchers to trace how colonisation progressed into severe infection.

A second study, published in the journal Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control, examined 363 newborns admitted to the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) between December 2023 and September 2024. The findings showed similarly alarming rates of hospital-acquired drug-resistant infections among newborns, highlighting that the threat extends beyond adult ICUs.

Despite the concerning findings, the studies also demonstrated that sustained infection prevention and control measures can significantly improve patient outcomes. After seven months of implementing stricter infection-control practices, bloodstream infection rates in the ICU fell from 28 to four cases per 100 patients—an 86 percent reduction. Mortality also declined sharply, from 26 to four deaths per 100 patients over the same period.

icddr,b's Head of the Antimicrobial Resistance Research Unit and principal investigator Dr Fahmida Chowdhury said hospitals must remain places of healing rather than sources of life-threatening infections. She stressed the importance of strengthening infection prevention, maintaining hospital hygiene and ensuring responsible antibiotic use to protect critically ill patients.

Executive Director Dr Tahmeed Ahmed said the findings clearly show that patients are acquiring dangerous drug-resistant infections during hospital treatment, but added that effective infection-control measures can substantially reduce both infections and deaths.