It can start out as simple as a slip in the bathroom or an injury while playing baseball. But once an infection with antibiotic-resistant bacteria takes hold, it can be difficult to diagnose, let alone treat.
Antibiotic resistance, an often underestimated health scourge, could directly kill 39 million humans in the next quarter century, according to a recent estimate. Ahead of a high-level meeting Thursday, on the sidelines of UN negotiations in New York, three survivors spoke to AFP.
In October 2020, veterinarian John Kariuki Muhia slipped in his bathroom in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, and broke his hip. He underwent surgery to insert pins into the joint.
“Immediately after that, I got very, very sick,” he says. He was given a whole series of antibiotics, without success. Same scenario for the removal of the pins. His doctors were afraid he was going to die. And at that point, he got Covid. “I was fighting to survive,” he emphasizes.
After five months in hospital, he returned home but remained bedridden. John Kariuki Muhia said he was "lucky" to have studied antimicrobial resistance before and suspected it.
So he did an antibiogram, which tested 18 different antibiotics on his infection. One of them worked, and in November 2021, he was deemed cured.
But he is now "disabled for life", his right leg shortened by almost eight centimetres. "We are all vulnerable," warns John Kariuki Muhia, who is due to speak on Thursday and is calling for action.
For Anthony Darcovich, it all started in the early 2000s while playing baseball, when he tore the rotator cuff in his right shoulder. A relatively "boring" injury in the eyes of doctors, says the 34-year-old, who currently lives in New York.
– Dangerous antibiotic resistance –
He underwent a series of operations to repair his shoulder and stop the pain. To no avail. Before each operation, he was given standard antibiotics to prevent infection. After the seventh operation, doctors found an infection in his shoulder that was resistant to the antibiotics. And "each operation spread the infection further," he says.
Anthony Darcovich underwent 12 more surgeries to remove the "infected material," including screws and grafted cartilage. His joint was "completely destroyed," his entire shoulder replaced with a prosthesis. His hope now is to one day be able to "raise my arm to shoulder height."
His case is different from many others because the bacteria that infected his shoulder is normally benign – it usually causes acne. But because it had become resistant to antibiotics, it spread to the joint and caused damage.
"We lived in a world where, more often than not, we could treat a lot of infections quite effectively. But in a context of resistance, that scenario no longer holds," says Anthony Darcovich, now an advocate for antibiotic-resistant patients.
Bhakti Chavan, a 30-year-old researcher, had just completed her studies in Mumbai, India, in 2017 when she noticed swelling in her neck. Her doctor prescribed antibiotics, but the swelling did not go down, says the 30-year-old researcher.
After some tests, he was diagnosed with drug-resistant tuberculosis, a common and dangerous form of antibiotic resistance.
First-line and second-line drugs didn't work, but she got access to two new drugs through Doctors Without Borders. The side effects, often distressing, made her depressed, and the "stigma" surrounding tuberculosis discouraged her from talking about her situation.
After two years of treatment with eight different antibiotics - including "painful daily injections for eight months" - Bhakti Chavan is now healthy.
But she fears that too few people, including some doctors, are ignoring the threat of antibiotic resistance.
Yet, she warns, "it can happen to anyone."
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