CDC Report Says Drug-Resistant Germs Cause About 50,800 Deaths a Year

Bacteria and fungi that no longer respond to the drugs meant to kill them cause an estimated 9.7 million infections and about 50,800 deaths in the United States each year, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency’s 2026 Antimicrobial Resistance Threats Report, posted on the CDC’s website and reported by ABC News and NBC News, covers 19 germs sorted into three tiers, urgent, serious and concerning, along with a watch list of six more that the agency is monitoring.

Among the most urgent threats is Candida auris, a fungus that mainly affects seriously ill patients in hospitals and nursing homes and can spread on surfaces and shared objects such as bedrails and blood pressure cuffs, according to the CDC. Both news organizations highlighted it. ABC News reported that the other germs in the urgent tier are drug-resistant gonorrhea and two groups of hospital bacteria that resist carbapenems, a class of powerful last-line antibiotics. ABC reported that reported C. auris cases rose by more than half from 2022 to 2023, and the CDC’s page notes that an earlier update found clinical cases had risen nearly fivefold from 2019 to 2022.

Resistance develops when microbes survive the drugs used against them and pass on the traits that helped them survive. The people at highest risk are those with weakened immune systems, serious illnesses or medical devices such as catheters, according to ABC’s account of the report. Infections picked up in health care settings carry large costs as well; ABC reported a figure of nearly $12 billion in 2023, and the CDC says the report includes estimates of those costs.

CDC Director Erica Schwartz said in a statement quoted by ABC News that antimicrobial resistance threatens modern medicine and puts millions of Americans at risk every year.

The agency’s advice to the public is familiar but still important: take antibiotics only when a health professional prescribes them, remember that antibiotics do nothing against viruses such as those that cause colds and flu, wash hands and stay up to date on vaccines.

There are limits to what the new figures can say about trends. The CDC cautions that the 2026 update uses different data methods than earlier reports, so most of its numbers should not be compared directly with previous estimates, with C. auris the main exception. That makes it hard to say from this report alone whether the overall problem is getting better or worse.

The figures leave room for both worry and some encouragement. One longtime hospital threat, C. diff, has improved enough to be moved from the urgent tier to the serious tier, ABC reported, after infections fell from 2018 to 2020 and then held steady, a sign that infection control efforts can work. At the same time, C. auris continues to spread in the places where patients are most vulnerable.

Either way, the report’s central message is that resistant infections remain a large and persistent danger, especially for the sickest patients.