Antibiotic Resistance: A Global Threat

This assignment delves into the pressing issue of antibiotic resistance, a major public health concern worldwide. It examines factors contributing to this phenomenon, including overuse and misuse of antibiotics, poor infection control practices, and global travel. The text highlights the World Health Organization's global action plan to address this crisis, emphasizing strategies like improved awareness, reduced infection incidence, strengthened research, optimized antibiotic use, and development of new interventions.

1Running head: HEALTHCARE
Healthcare
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Antibiotic resistance: Bacteria fighting for existence
Antimicrobial resistance has drawn significant attention in the contemporary era as a
major public health issue. Almost all parts of the globe are facing this challenge, and it has
been noted that the reduced ability of individuals to fight against infectious diseases is of key
concern for public health departments.
The term antimicrobial refers to antibiotic, antiviral, antifungal and antiprotozoal
medicines. Among these, antibiotic resistance is of more prominence that occurs under
conditions when the organisms causing infection are able to survive exposure to a medicine
normally that is normally capable of killing them of stopping the growth of the same.
Resistance is a biological phenomenon that is accelerated through different factors such as
poor infection control practices and global travel and trade. A number of medical treatments
in recent years, such as cancer chemotherapy and organ transplantation, require proper
functioning of antibiotics for prevention and treatment of bacterial infections that are
commonly caused by this treatment
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/antimicrobial-resistance-amr-information-and-
resources/
Research indicates that antibiotics, unlike other drugs, becomes less useful with
increased use against target organism. Inappropriate and overuse of anitbiotics allows the
organisms to develop resistance against the drugs. Antibiotic consumption had increased
significantly in the past 4 years by 6.5% in England, as reported in 2015. Prescribing
increased from 21.6 DDD per 1,000 inhabitants per day in England in 2011 to 23 DDD per
1,000 inhabitants per day in 2014
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-matters-antimicrobial-resistance/health-
matters-antimicrobial-resistance

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Figure: How antibiotic resistance occurs (rqhealth.ca 2018)
The illustration provided below reflects on how individuals, and the environment
around contribute to the increase of antibacteria resistance. Research highlights that they have
the capability to spread between animals and people, as well as from person to person.
Insufficient sanitary conditions, improper infection control and ineffective food handling
techniques are all responsible for encouraging the spread of antibiotic resistance.
Figure: Spread of antibiotic resistance (cdc.gov 2018)

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In the year 2016, the UN arranged a special meeting of the General Assembly for
discussing the health issue. This was considered as antibiotic resistance was perceived as a
crisis rising to a ‘high level’. The need of addressing antibiotic resistance has been felt across
domains as it is clear that the frequency of antibiotic resistant infections is on the rise. In May
2015, the Sixty-eight World Health Assembly was held, where a distinct global action plan
was outlined by the World Health Assembly for handling antimicrobial resistance, especially
antibiotic resistance which is the more crucial drug-resistance trend (Inoue and Minghui
2017). The goal has been to ensure the permanence of successful treatment and prevention of
infectious diseases. The five strategies that have been outlined for achieving the goal are as
follows:
 Improvement of understanding and awareness of antimicrobial resistance
 Reduction of infection incidence
 Strengthening of knowledge through research and surveillance
 Optimisation of the use of antimicrobial agents
 Development of economic cases of sustainable investment in novice vaccines,
diagnostic tools, medicines and other interventions
Coming to the end of this informative piece, it can be stated that the problem of antibiotic
resistance is not confined to particular areas of the world. Rather, it has affected lives of
individuals in all regions of the globe. Policy makers need to come forward to bring
modifications in policies wherever needed. A call to action has to be issued for making
antibiotic resistance a priority in research and practice. Governments of different countries
must join hand to make the fight against antibiotic resistance a success (Soommer et al.
2017).

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References
Cdc.gov. (2018). Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2013 |
Antibiotic/Antimicrobial Resistance | CDC. [online] Available at:
https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/threat-report-2013/ [Accessed 15 Jan. 2018].
Gov.uk. (2018). Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) - GOV.UK. [online] Available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/antimicrobial-resistance-amr-information-and-
resources [Accessed 15 Jan. 2018].
Gov.uk. (2018). Health matters: antimicrobial resistance - GOV.UK. [online] Available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-matters-antimicrobial-resistance/health-
matters-antimicrobial-resistance [Accessed 15 Jan. 2018].
Inoue, H. and Minghui, R., 2017. Antimicrobial resistance: translating political commitment
into national action. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 95(4), p.242.
Rqhealth.ca. (2018). Why is the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program Important?. [online]
Available at: http://www.rqhealth.ca/department/antimicrobial-stewardship-program/why-is-
the-antimicrobial-stewardship-program-important [Accessed 15 Jan. 2018].
Sommer, M.O., Munck, C., Toft-Kehler, R.V. and Andersson, D.I., 2017. Prediction of
antibiotic resistance: time for a new preclinical paradigm?. Nature Reviews
Microbiology, 15(11), p.689.