Severe Malnutrition In Young Children Linked To Rising Antibiotic Resistance: Study

An estimated 45 million children under the age of five worldwide suffer from severe malnutrition.

A new study has revealed that these children are at significant risk of carrying antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, posing a serious threat to treatment outcomes.

The weakened immune systems of malnourished children also increase their susceptibility to life-threatening infections such as tuberculosis and sepsis.

The research, led by the Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research (IOI), focused on children treated for severe malnutrition in a hospital facility in Niger.

Published in ‘Nature Communications’, the findings revealed that 76 per cent of children carried bacteria with extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) genes, which render many commonly used antibiotics ineffective.

Alarmingly, one in four children carried bacteria with carbapenemase genes like blaNDM, conferring resistance to some of the strongest last-line antibiotics available.

Expert Concerns

“These are some of the most vulnerable children in the world, and we’re seeing them pick up bacteria that don’t respond to life-saving antibiotics,” said Dr Kirsty Sands, Scientific Lead at IOI and the study’s lead author.

She added that while the study centred on one treatment facility, similar conditions are likely prevalent across many hospitals globally.

“As AMR continues to rise worldwide, concurrent humanitarian crises, including wars and climate change, are worsening malnutrition and overcrowding in treatment centres,” Sands noted.

The Role of Antibiotics & Resistance

Antibiotics, once considered miracle drugs, are becoming less effective as bacteria, fungi and parasites evolve resistance.

Working with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), researchers collected over 3,000 rectal swabs from 1,371 severely malnourished children between 2016 and 2017.

Nearly 70 per cent of children who did not carry carbapenem-resistant bacteria on admission were found to carry them at discharge.

Carbapenems, regarded as last-resort antibiotics, are used when other treatments fail, making this rise in resistance particularly concerning.

Over 10 per cent of the children carried E coli ST167 strains with the blaNDM gene, severely limiting treatment options.

The study emphasised the urgent need to strengthen infection prevention and control measures, particularly in facilities treating severely malnourished children.

“This research underscores the critical intersection of malnutrition and antimicrobial resistance,” the study concluded, urging global health systems to prioritise vulnerable populations to curb the escalating AMR crisis.

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