As Big Phar­ma los­es in­ter­est in new an­tibi­otics, in­fec­tions are on­ly grow­ing stronger

For­get Covid-19, mon­key­pox, and oth­er virus­es for the mo­ment and con­sid­er an­oth­er threat trou­bling in­fec­tious dis­ease spe­cial­ists: com­mon uri­nary tract in­fec­tions, or UTIs, that lead to emer­gency room vis­its and even hos­pi­tal­iza­tions be­cause of the fail­ure of oral an­tibi­otics.

There’s no Op­er­a­tion Warp Speed charg­ing to res­cue us from the germs that cause these in­fec­tions, which ex­pand­ed their range dur­ing the first year of the pan­dem­ic, ac­cord­ing to a new Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion re­port. In the past year, the FDA de­clined to ap­prove two promis­ing oral drugs — su­lopen­em and tebipen­em — to treat drug-re­sis­tant UTIs, say­ing it need­ed more ev­i­dence they work as well as cur­rent drugs.

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