RESISTANCE TODAY, A PANDEMIC TOMORROW?

It is World Antimicrobial Awareness week and I find myself thinking of this scourge, Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). I am not a prophet of doom so I won’t try to be one but the numbers don’t lie. We are heading to disaster if current trends are to go by. Currently, infections caused by multi-drug resistant pathogens kill over 760,000 people annually and there is a grimmer outlook if we are to take a temporal projection.

According to the O’Neil report from the UK government, by 2050 AMR will kill more than 10 million people annually if no aggressive action is taken with an economic cost of about 100 trillion us dollars lost due to affected productivity. Pause! Is that not a pandemic?? Well, as hard as this will hit the developed world, the impact will be felt much more severely in low- and middle-income countries.

Surely there must be something we can do to avert such a looming crisis. Yes, there is and everyone must do their part if we are to stand a chance in controlling the inevitable (sarcasm!).

Much as we are talking of the pathogens becoming increasingly resistant to drugs i.e. Multi-drug resistance (sometimes Extensive Drug Resistance), it is concerning that we have also been becoming increasingly resistant to the calls of using antibiotics responsibly. It would not be surprising to see a crusader of use-antibiotics-responsibly campaigns willing to forsake the message of his evangelism when he is faced with a common cold that can be treated with antibiotics (sarcasm again!)

The point is we should be concerned with Human-Induced AMR(HI-AMR).  Because as it stands it is like we are literary waving AMR (hi AMR!!!) with our actions and that undermines every effort to avert the AMR crisis.

Once again let us stop misusing antibiotics. Let us stop sharing our doctor prescribed antibiotics with someone else. The common cold should not be treated with antibiotics, please. And sometimes let nature intervene in these illnesses that don’t need a prescription.

Indeed change is needed regarding how we handle antibiotics. No more handshakes with AMR(HI-AMR!!!!). Imagine a pandemic of drug-resistant infection!!! The one you could handle but couldn’t and the window is missed. Once again not a prophet of doom but it’s the numbers and they do not lie.