The World Health Organization (WHO) warned this Friday that bacterial resistance to antibiotics is among the top 10 threats to global public health, highlighting the "great concern" of blood infections in hospital settings.

"Antimicrobial resistance represents a significant global threat of major economic and public health proportions," points out the fifth report of the WHO surveillance system released this Friday.

The document points out that modern medicine depends on effective antimicrobial drugs, but high rates of resistant infections have been recorded across a wide range of microorganisms in the various WHO regions.

"The very high levels in 2020 of antimicrobial resistance in pathogens that cause infections in the bloodstream, regardless of test coverage, are a major concern," the organization warned, quoted by Lusa.

Furthermore, according to the report, the very high levels of resistance to various bacteria that cause blood infections mean that "infection prevention and control measures need to be strengthened in hospital settings globally".

The WHO also stresses that the results of this report demonstrate the continuing need to build robust surveillance systems, capable of producing data that can be used to inform and evaluate public health actions.

The document highlights that the Covid-19 pandemic may have had an impact on the reporting capacity of several countries and territories, with the WHO recommending a strengthening of surveillance, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

"The low proportion of countries and territories performing external quality assurance in all clinical laboratories serving national surveillance systems calls for an urgent global effort to support the development of national clinical bacteriology networks, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, and a global network of microbiology laboratories to support diagnosis in all regions," the report said.