What is antimicrobial resistance?
The World Health Organization (WHO) has listed antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as one of the urgent health challenges of the next decade. It’s a global public health issue, which means it affects all of us. And it threatens many of the advances made in modern medicine. So, what is antimicrobial resistance, and why is it so important? Read on to find out more.
Antimicrobial resistance or AMR is what happens when very important medicines, such as antibiotics stop working when needed.
World Health Organization has listed AMR as one of the urgent health challenges for the next decade.
AMR occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines, making infections harder to treat, leading to worse health outcomes.
Some antibiotics work by killing bacteria.
Other antibiotics work by stopping them growing and multiplying.
Antibiotic resistance happens when bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.
The bacteria find ways to adapt and evolve when they're exposed to antibiotics.
This then means that these bacteria are able to go on and infect other people and become harder to treat than non resistant bacteria.
Globally, at least 700,000 people die each year due to diseases that become resistant to medication.
Some estimates suggest that if we don't stop AMR, it'll kill 10 million people per year globally by the year 2050.
That's more than cancer and diabetes combined.
Rise in AMR is caused by the overuse and misuse of these important medicines.
Preventing infections is key.
Regularly wash your hands, avoid contact with sick people and ensure your vaccinations are up to date.
If you do need antibiotics, it's important not to misuse them.
Don't be tempted to stop taking antibiotics if you feel better.
Take them as your doctor prescribes and your prescription will tell you exactly how long.
Only take antibiotics a health professional has prescribed for you.
Accept when an antibiotic is not needed, for example, they can't help you if you have a common cold.
Don't keep leftover antibiotics to use later.
Don't flush them down the toilet or sink.
Hand any unused antibiotics you have to your pharmacist for disposal.
What is AMR?
Antimicrobial medicines (antimicrobials) treat illnesses caused by microbes, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.
Antimicrobial medicines include:
- antibiotics, which are used to treat bacterial infections. Examples of antibiotics include amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, and doxycycline
- antivirals, which are used to treat viral infections
- anti-parasitics, which are used to treat infections caused by parasites (for example, malaria)
- antifungals, used to treat fungal infections (for example, athlete’s foot and thrush)
Antimicrobial resistance is what happens when these microbes become resistant to treatment. This means that these important medicines stop working as they should. And this makes infections harder to treat.
Antimicrobials aren’t just used as a medicine in people. They’re also used in veterinary medicine, plant agriculture, and industry.
What causes antimicrobial resistance?
Sometimes, the microbes that make us ill can become resistant to antimicrobials. This means they can survive and carry on spreading. Microbes like these are sometimes called ‘superbugs’. So, antimicrobial resistance happens naturally over time.
The rise in antimicrobial resistance is caused by the over-use and misuse of antimicrobial medicines. For example, if we take antibiotics when we don’t need to, this gives bacteria a chance to evolve resistance to those antibiotics.
In the UK, you can only get antibiotics on prescription from a doctor. But in many countries, people can buy antibiotics over the counter.
Why is antimicrobial resistance a problem?
It’s thought that around 1 million people die a year because of diseases that have become resistant to medicines. Some estimates suggest that if we don’t stop AMR, it could kill almost 2 million people per year worldwide by the year 2050.
Antimicrobials are key to protecting everyone’s health. Without them, even routine surgeries will become dangerous. And while medical research is creating new antimicrobials, it can’t keep up with the pace that’s needed.
What can we do to stop antimicrobial resistance?
There are many things that you can do to help keep life-saving antimicrobial medicines working.
Preventing infections from developing in the first place is something we can all do by:
- regularly washing our hands
- preparing food safely
- ensuring our vaccinations are up to date
- staying healthy when travelling abroad
Using antibiotics correctly
If you do need antibiotics, it’s important not to misuse them.
- Don’t be tempted to stop taking antibiotics if you feel better. Take them as your doctor prescribes. You’ll need to take them for a set period of time, which could be days, weeks, or even months. Your prescription will tell you how long. Finish the whole course, even if you start to feel better, to make sure all the bacteria are gone and to stop the infection returning.
- Don’t share your antibiotics with anyone or take someone else’s. Only take antibiotics a health professional has prescribed to you. Accept when an antibiotic is not needed - for example, they can’t help a common cold.
- Don’t keep leftover antibiotics to use later.
- Don’t flush them down the toilet or sink – hand any unused antibiotics to your pharmacist for disposal.
You can make a difference
Remember, taking antibiotics when you don't need them puts you and your family at risk. AMR is relevant to the personal health and wellbeing of everyone in the world. Antimicrobials are the only type of medicine where one person's use can affect how well the medicine works in other people. It’s so important that we all do our part to help stop AMR.
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Sources Sources
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- What is antimicrobial resistance – and how do we prevent it? Wellcome Trust. wellcome.org, published May 2024
- Overview of viruses – treatment of viral infections. MSD Manual. msdmanuals.com, revised March 2023
- Campbel S, Soman-Faulkner K. Antiparasitic drugs. StatPearls. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, last updated May 2023
- Antifungal medications. MSD Manual. msdmanuals.com, revised September 2023
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- Antimicrobial resistance fact sheet. World Health Organization. who.int, published November 2023
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- GBD 2021 Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborators. Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance 1990–2021: a systematic analysis with forecasts to 2050. Lancet 2024;404:1199-1226. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01867-1
- The Lancet: More than 39 million deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections estimated between now and 2050, suggests first global analysis. Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. healthdata.org, published September 2024
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