April 7th, 2011: World Health Day, Antimicrobial Resistance: No Action Today, No Cure Tomorrow
Join K4Health in celebrating World Health Day 2011 by learning more about antimicrobial resistance.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) or drug resistance is when a virus, bacteria, or parasite become resistant to a medicine which was previously used as a treatment. These medications include antibiotics, antivirals, and antimalarials. As a result of the misuse of antimicrobial medicines, standard treatments become resistant or ineffective and infections persist or spread. [1]
Often called “super bugs,” these drug resistant strands of infectious diseases cannot be treated normally, and on many occasions medical treatment does not exist to treat the mutated strand. AMR can affect everyone, but is a particular struggle for people in developing countries and places with limited access to quality medical care and access to medication.
AMR has many negative effects on the world’s health:
- It causes incurable strands of life threatening diseases.
- Patients remain infectious longer, which in turn challenges infection control.
- If AMR continues there will be very few, if any, antibiotics that are effective against even our most common diseases.
- It increases the cost of health care, which is particularly hard on countries in the developing world that can barely afford the basic level of care.
- It takes us backwards in terms of medical advancements.
- It compromises our world health security, in that it increases the spread of disease.
We most commonly see AMR with diseases such as malaria, TB, and HIV.
Resistance to earlier generation antimalarial medicines such as chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine is widespread in most countries where malaria is endemic. Parasites resistant to the existing treatment, artemisinins, are emerging in South-East Asia. Additionally, infections show delayed clearance after the start of treatment, indicating resistance. [2]
About 440,000 new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) emerge annually, causing at least 150,000 deaths. Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has been reported in 64 countries to date. [2]
Resistance is an emerging concern for treating HIV, following the rapid expansion in access to antiretroviral medicines in recent years. National surveys are underway to detect and monitor resistance. [2]
The main reasons for antimicrobial resistance fall into the following four areas:
- Diagnosis: Improper diagnosis and having the wrong tools can mean improper prescription of medication, which can cause mutations in the pathogen causing the disease.
- Treatment: Low-quality of medicines and wrong prescriptions can facilitate antimicrobial resistance.
- Adherence: Lack of patient adherence to treatment can allow mutations in the genes of the microbe. Further, inability to access the medications required for treatment, due to proximity to health services or lack of particular drugs required for treatment.
- Surveillance: Without surveillance across provinces, states, and countries, mutated strands have a greater chance to travel and become an epidemic. Poor infection control allows the spread of diseases.
The WHO is issuing a call for action to stop the spread of antimicrobial resistance and asks for "policy makers and planners, the public and patients, practitioners and prescribers, pharmacists and dispensers, and the pharmaceutical industry, to think, act and take responsibility for combating drug resistance." [3]
For more information on World Health Day 2011 visit the WHO World Health Day site. For more information on different infectious diseases click on the links to K4Health eToolkits or Global Health eLearning Course below:
Malawi HIV/AIDS
Peace Corps – HIV/AIDS
Peace Corps – Malaria
Adolescents Living with HIV
Antimicrobial Resistance Part 1- Global Health eLearning Course
- rashore's blog
- Login or register to post comments
