“Antimicrobial resistance poses a fundamental threat to human health, development and security”, Margaret Chan, the WHO director general said in a statement.
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The issue of antibiotic resistance isn’t new, and experts have long called for measures to combat it.
Experts argue that if no action is taken, drug-resistant infections will kill an estimated 10 million people a year by 2050. An analysis of USA acute-care hospitals found a little more than one-third had stewardship programs that met all seven of the CDC’s recommended elements for best practices. Resistance was isolated, though, to a few locations and a few specific bacteria. “It’s to promote the animals’ growth”. Numerous same drugs are used in people and livestock, with more than 70 percent by weight of those antibiotics going to animals.
Any resolution endorsed by member states is unlikely to include targets limiting the use of antibiotics on a per capita basis…
The blueprint for tackling AMR was developed in 2015 by the World Health Organization (WHO) in coordination with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).
-Optimizing Use of Antimicrobials focuses on preserving the power of the antibodies that still work.
Antibiotic resistance begins when bacteria or viruses become resistant to the antibiotics which are conventionally used to treat them.
Although antimicrobial resistance occurs naturally over time, usually through genetic changes, the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials is accelerating this process.
Colonies of E. coli bacteria grown on a Hektoen enteric (HE) agar plate are seen in a microscopic image courtesy of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). And based on a CDC study published September 19, little progress has been made in curtailing those prescriptions between 2006 and 2012. “With drug supply chains shrouded in mystery, we also need more transparency on the origin of our antibiotics”. This prevents it then from expelling the antibiotics used.
Experts have long warned that the overuse of antibiotics will eventually render them useless; Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, was already sounding the alarm in 1945. “Doctors are human, and they’ll often give in”. Antibactieral soaps could also be contributing to the increase in resistance of bacteria, and “may have a significant impact on the effectiveness of medical treatments”. “Telling Al Jazeera that a meeting alone, however, will not create a solution to the problem…”
“There are now many infections that can not be treated at all”, said Dr. Vicky Enne, a clinical microbiologist at University College London who is working on new diagnostics to better target prescriptions. Investors are in continued dialogue with eight of the companies.
But a US law that, among other things, extended companies’ patent exclusivity seems to have had some impact.
Over the past half century, only two new classes of antibiotics reached the market. And about three dozen are under development. Soon it started showing up in other countries, too. “It’s very easy to do compared to developing new antibiotics”.
But, he added, older antibiotics that have fallen out of favor should not be forgotten.
Antimicrobials, and specifically antibiotics, play a crucial role in modern medicine. It is considered the greatest and most urgent global risk requiring worldwide and national attention.
The topic will be discussed at the United Nations General Assembly.
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The “political momentum” for the summit has been simmering for the last couple of years, mostly after various hospitals in Ghana, Africa, were shut down for health risks regarding superbugs. So how can we solve this problem? Srinivasan said. “How much is even misunderstanding that they’ve heard of resistant infections, and think they need to use a stronger drug, but don’t actually need to?” “The emergence of bacterial resistance is outpacing the world’s capacity for antibiotic discovery”.
