Overview
- The Asociación Mexicana de Gastroenterología says about 70% of people in Mexico harbor Helicobacter pylori, compared with roughly 50% worldwide, identifying it as a major infectious risk factor for gastric cancer.
- Health figures cited by specialists indicate around 6,000 new gastric cancer cases each year in Mexico—about 20 per 100,000 people—ranking it as the country’s sixth most frequent tumor.
- Transmission often occurs within households and through contaminated water, with maternal carriage markedly increasing the chance of passing the bacterium to children; crowding and lack of water for handwashing heighten risk.
- More than half of gastric cancer cases occur in the lower stomach, and 90% of those are associated with H. pylori, with clinicians saying early detection and eradication could reduce cases by about 80%.
- AMG leaders highlighted growing antibiotic resistance, announced a pilot project to detect the bacterium, and noted reinfection rates near 20%.