AMR is viewed as a problem that is either not urgent enough or too challenging to fix. Both are untrue. According to co-author Prof. Ramanan Laxminarayan, the resources needed to solve it are readily accessible.
According to a recent Lancet study, anti-microbial resistance (AMR) bacteria cause approximately five million deaths worldwide year. As a matter of fact, they account for a significant portion of the 7.7 million fatalities worldwide attributed to bacterial infections, which are fast rising to the status of the second leading cause of death.
AMR was a contributing factor in over 10,43,500 deaths in India in 2019. Too long, AMR has been viewed as either not critically important or too challenging to address. Both are untrue. We have the means readily accessible to take quick action. As co-author of a new Lancet series on the subject and senior research fellow at Princeton University, Prof. Ramanan Laxminarayan adds, “We hope that this September’s UN high-level meeting will ensure that there is a global will to act.”
Administrators recommend strengthening and expanding current infection prevention strategies, such as hand hygiene, routine equipment cleaning and sterilisation in healthcare facilities, the availability of safe drinking water, efficient sanitation, and the use of pediatric vaccines, according to an analysis by The Lancet series of papers. According to researchers, this could avert more than 750,000 AMR-related deaths in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) annually.
Antimicrobial Resistance: What Is It?
This arises when antimicrobial medications, such as antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitics, cease to work against bacteria, viruses, fungus, and parasites. According to Prof. Laxminarayan, “antibiotic resistance (AMR) is the inability of antibiotics to treat bacteria because these drugs have evolved to become resistant to widespread or inappropriate use.” Consequently, infections become harder or impossible to cure, raising the possibility of disease spread, serious sickness, permanent disability, and even death.
what are the causes behind antimicrobial resistance?
Drug-resistant infections are mostly caused by the abuse and overuse of antibiotics in people, animals, and plants. Many of the advancements in contemporary medicine are jeopardized by AMR. According to WHO, it complicates the treatment of infections and makes other medical operations and treatments, such surgery, cesarean sections, and cancer chemotherapy, much more challenging.
The burden is made worse, according to study authors, in some regions of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa by a lack of access to effective antibiotics, insufficient laboratory testing, and lax surveillance.
When used as prescribed, antibiotics can stop many bacterial infections from killing people, and having access to second-line medicines can also save lives from certain drug-resistance infections.