On Tuesday, a study published in the Lancet revealed that bacterial infections are the second leading cause of death worldwide after ischemic heart disease, which includes heart attack. The study revealed that bacterial infections accounted for one in every eight deaths in 2019.

The study was conducted with the support of the Global Burden of Disease Initiative, a vast research program funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The researchers examined mortality data from 204 countries and territories linked to 33 common bacterial pathogens and 11 types of infection. The analysis revealed that five of these 33 pathogens, namely Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, were responsible for more than half of the deaths.

Additionally, the study also revealed the stark difference in the impact of these infections in poor and wealthy regions. In Sub-Saharan Africa, there were 230 deaths per 100,000 population, whereas, in the so-called "high-income super-region," which included countries in Western Europe, North America, and Australasia, the number fell to 52 per 100,000.