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July 12 (Reuters) - U.S. deaths from bacteria resistant to antibiotics, also known as 'superbugs', jumped 15% in 2020 as the drugs were widely dispensed to treat COVID-19 and fight off bacterial infections during long hospitalizations, enabling the bugs to evolve, a U.S. government report said on Tuesday. The CDC said that more than 29,400 people died from antimicrobial-resistant infections during the first year of the pandemic and that of those, nearly 40% had acquired the infection in hospital. Almost 80% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 received an antibiotic - even though they are not useful for viral infections - because of the difficulty in distinguishing COVID-19 from pneumonia when patients first arrived at the hospital, the CDC said. The World Health Organization (WHO) separately on Tuesday released a report identifying 61 vaccine candidates it said should be developed to prevent disease and help control the bacterial infections and antibiotic overuse that leads to antimicrobial resistance.