The cancer-causing HP virus has become twice as difficult to kill

According to new research, antibiotic resistance to the virus that causes cancer has more than doubled in just 20 years.

The findings are based on drugs that treat Helicobacter pylori (HP) , a potentially deadly bacterium associated with stomach ulcers and stomach tumors, according to the British Telegraph .

The rate of antibiotic resistance soared from less than 10% in 1998 to nearly 22% last year. The study's lead author, Professor Francis Megraud, described the trend as "alarming". The team looked at the main antibiotics used to kill H. pylori including clarithromycin, levofloxacin and metronidazole.

Picture 1 of The cancer-causing HP virus has become twice as difficult to kill
These viruses are one of the biggest threats to humans.

The researchers analyzed their effects on 1,232 patients from 18 countries across Europe. Including Ireland is one of the places where the treatments proved to be most helpless.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has described these viruses as one of the biggest threats to humanity. It was named H. pylori among the most dangerous.

Professor Megraud, a bacteriologist at the University of Bordeaux, France, said: "H. pylori infection is a very complex treatment that requires a combination of drugs. With the rate of resistance to common antibiotics Used as clarithromycin at an alarming rate of nearly one percent each year, treatment options for H. pylori will gradually be limited and ineffective if new therapeutic strategies have not been developed. " he said.

"The reduced effectiveness of current treatments can maintain a high incidence of stomach cancer and other diseases such as peptic ulcer, if drug resistance continues to increase at this rate," he recommends. .

H. pylori is one of the most common infections, now up to the level of possibly one in two people. It can cause gastritis, or gastritis, leading to stomach ulcers. This situation affects one in 15 people in the UK alone.

The bacterium is also the most important risk factor for stomach cancer - the third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. In the UK, an estimated 6,700 cases of stomach cancer are diagnosed each year, claiming about 4,400 lives each year.

In Ireland, more than a quarter of patients (25.6%) were resistant to clarithromycin, the main antimicrobial drug - compared to only one in 20 (5%) in Denmark.

Last year, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned that the viruses would kill about 1.3 million people in Europe - including 90,000 in the UK - by 2050.