WASHINGTON - US health regulators have approved a new antibiotic to treat urinary tract infections, a problem affecting more than 100 million people around the world, mainly women, British pharmaceutical giant GSK said Tuesday.

The company said the US Food and Drug Administration approved the use of the product -- called Blujepa -- for treatment of so-called uncomplicated urinary tract infections in adult women and girls 12 and older.

It is the first in a new class of oral antibiotics for urinary tract infections, said GSK scientific director Tony Wood, who called the FDA approval a "crucial milestone."

While other antibiotics exist for treating these infections, this new drug will "bring another option to patients given recurrent infections and rising rates of resistance to existing treatments," Wood said.

Repeated use of antibiotics has led to the emergence of bacteria that are more and more resistant, making the infections they cause harder to cure.

A study published in 2019 concluded that 92 percent of bacteria that cause urinary tract infections are resistant to at least one antibiotic and 80 percent are resistant to at least two.

cha/vla/dw/wd

© Agence France-Presse