The Center for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC determined three threat levels for the outbreak of antibiotic and antimicrobial resistant diseases. As their names suggest, these diseases have the ability to resist the effects of drugs and evolve new strains that are resilient to current drugs. The following are the threat levels:
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The lowest threat level is dubbed “concerning,” which has a threat score of 3/5. This threat level is for bacteria with low antibiotic resistance. The bacteria also have multiple therapeutic options for resistant infections. Nevertheless, these pathogens can cause severe illness and thus require monitoring and rapid incident response.
The next level is labeled “serious,” with a score of 4/5. These threats have reasonable availability of therapeutic agents or several other reasons which make them considerably worse than concerning. These are diseases that can only worsen and need ongoing public health monitoring, and evoke preventive measures.
The highest threat level is “urgent,” with a score of 5/5. Urgent threats are high-consequence antibiotic resistant threats due to risks identified by the CDC across several criteria. This disease may not be widespread but have the potential of infecting a lot of people in a given area. This threat requires public health attention to identify infections and to limit transmission.
Image source: cdc.gov
Captain Martin Lloyd Sanders, Ph.D., formally held the position of Director for Safety, Environmental Compliance and Emergency Management in Federal Occupational Health (FOH/PSC). He is a multi-awarded scientist and US Army veteran who has been deeply involved in biosafety and biosecurity issues both here and abroad. To know more about the CDC and its procedures, visit this website.
