Drug-resistant bacteria and fungi cause an estimated 9.7 million infections and 50,800 deaths in the United States every year, according to an updated Antimicrobial Resistance Threats Report published this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The figures are far above the 2.8 million infections and 35,000 deaths in the agency’s last full report in 2019, although the CDC cautions that the two reports should not be compared directly.
The 2026 update covers 19 bacterial and fungal pathogens, sorted into urgent, serious and concerning threat levels, plus a watch list of six germs whose full burden in the US is not yet understood. The estimates are for 2023, the most recent data year. The CDC says its methods and data sources changed substantially between earlier reports and this one for every pathogen except Candida auris, so direct comparisons between reports should not be made. CDC officials said the increase partly reflects a real rise in infections, Healthline reported.
Four pathogens sit in the urgent tier: Candida auris, carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) and drug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The report moves Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) from urgent to serious, adds drug-resistant Neisseria meningitidis as a serious threat, and places drug-resistant dermatophytes, drug-resistant Haemophilus influenzae and nontuberculous mycobacteria on the watch list.
C. diff infections are not usually drug-resistant, but the CDC includes them because the same factors, antibiotic use and the spread of germs, drive both C. diff and the development of resistance. Without C. diff, the agency puts the annual toll at more than 9.3 million drug-resistant infections and more than 39,000 deaths.
The fungus C. auris is the clearest example of a worsening threat. The CDC says reported clinical cases nearly quintupled between 2019 and 2022, and Healthline reported that cases rose by more than 50% between 2022 and 2023, a nearly tenfold increase since the fungus was first detected in US hospitals a decade ago. It is almost completely resistant to one class of antifungal drugs and shows emerging resistance to the other two, Healthline reported.
Seven bacterial threats commonly associated with health care caused more than 42,000 deaths in 2023 and nearly $12 billion in health care costs, according to the report. Dr. Wendy Armstrong, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said in a statement reported by Healthline that the numbers “are alarming by any measure but are particularly sobering.”
The US picture matches a global trend. In October 2025 the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that one in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections worldwide in 2023 was resistant to antibiotic treatment, based on surveillance data from 104 countries, and that resistance rose in more than 40% of the pathogen-antibiotic combinations it tracks between 2018 and 2023. “Antimicrobial resistance is outpacing advances in modern medicine, threatening the health of families worldwide,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the time.
Why it matters
For hospitals and clinicians, the health care figures are the most immediate. More than 42,000 of the deaths are tied to seven bacterial threats that typically spread in health care settings, where infection control and careful antibiotic use are the main defenses. The reclassification of C. diff to a serious threat comes with a change in how it is counted: the CDC’s estimates for it now include both hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients.
For patients, the urgent list points to infections with few remaining treatment options. Only a few antibiotics still work against drug-resistant gonorrhea, and untreated infection can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility, Healthline reported. A recent study cited by Healthline found CRE cases at US hospitals rose 18% between 2019 and 2023, and that 67% of 2023 cases were in people living in the community, though some may have had recent health care exposure.
What to watch
The CDC says pathogens on the watch list may be reclassified as more is learned about their burden in the US. Because of the change in methods, the agency says only the C. auris trend can be read across its reports; comparisons for the other 18 pathogens should wait for future updates built on the new approach.
The caveats
The 9.7 million and 50,800 figures are modeled national estimates for 2023, not counts of reported cases, and they include C. diff, which is not typically drug-resistant. The headline comparison with 2019 that has appeared in news coverage is one the CDC itself says should not be made, except for C. auris. The WHO figure is drawn from laboratory-confirmed infections in countries that report to its surveillance system, which WHO notes is weighted toward settings with the capacity to test.
This article is for general information and does not replace advice from a qualified clinician. Corrections: email the editor using the address on the Contact page.
