Innovation to Save Antibiotics – Prize-Winning Diagnostics for UTIs

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are common, uncomfortable, and embarrassing. They can also be deadly. These infections of the kidneys, bladder, or urethra affect about 1 in 10 men in their lifetimes and more than half of women. Untreated UTIs can cause a body-wide infection known as sepsis. An estimated 236,000 people globally die every year from UTIs.  

Most UTIs are fairly easy to treat with antibiotics. However, a quarter to a third of urinary tract infections (UTIs) are caused by drug-resistant bacteria. That makes them much more difficult to treat. 

There’s no easy test to tell medical professionals whether an infection will be easy to treat with readily available antibiotics, so they often have to make their best guess. Using the wrong antibiotic to treat any infection can delay recovery and help germs evolve drug resistance. 

Sweden-based Sysmex Astrego developed a test that works in 45 minutes to help determine what type of germ is causing a UTI and which antibiotic should be used to treat it.  

Challenge Works, which awards prizes to encourage solutions to hard problems in global health, climate, technology, and other areas, has awarded Sysmex Astrego the Longitude Prize to help the company develop and commercialize the test. 

“The winning test will be transformational for infection diagnosis and treatment, providing accurate antibiotic susceptibility results in 45 minutes – compared to the 2-3 day wait patients currently face,” Challenge Works says. 

In this episode of One World, One Health, Jasmin Major of Challenge Works explains why diagnostic innovations like this are so important. 

Read more about the One Health Trust’s work on antimicrobial resistance here.