Antimicrobial Resistance – 5 facts you should know.
World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) is celebrated between 18-24 November each year.
It aims to increase awareness of increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) globally and to encourage best practices among you the general public, we health workers, farmers… animal health professionals…policy makers…. (ALL OF US!)
Let’s avoid further drug-resistant infections from emerging and spreading.
To wrap up WAAW 2021, we present to you 5 random facts that you should know:
1. The terms antimicrobials and antibiotics are not synonymous.
Antimicrobials is an umbrella term referring to medicines that act on various microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa
whereas
Antibiotics refer to medicines that specifically target bacteria and therefore only treat bacterial infections.
2. The first antibiotic was discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, a Scottish physician and microbiologist.
He initially named it ‘mould juice’ and later Penicillin to refer to the antibacterial substance present in the mould produced by the fungus Penicillium rubens.
3. Sadly, due to antibiotic misuse and overuse, the rate of evolution of drug resistant bacteria is faster than the rate at which we are developing new antibiotic drugs.
Misuse and Overuse include the unnecessary use of antibiotics, sharing or using leftover antibiotics, failure to complete the prescribed course of antibiotics and the use of antibiotics as animal growth promoters in farms and in aquaculture, among others.
Only 15 new antibiotics were approved between 2000 & 2018, compared to the 63 put to clinical use between 1980 and 2000.
4. At least 700,000 people are dying each year from drug resistant infections and the number is expected to rise to 10 million annual deaths by 2050.
This means that simple wound infections might be a problem in future if we continue misusing and overusing antimicrobials!
5. In sub-Saharan Africa, over 50% of the infants newly diagnosed with HIV are resistant to an essential class of antiretroviral drugs referred to as Non-Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors(NNRTIs).
This is a clear indicator that antimicrobial resistance cuts across the various micro-organisms and not just bacteria!
Sobering right? We hope this gives you some insight on antimicrobial resistance and why the world over is making a fuss about it.
We at Leleshwa Pharmacy are committed to ensuring that we provide the best advice on medicine use, pledging to help our patients keep antimicrobial resistance at bay by offering appropriate guidance on the use of antimicrobials.
Visit us today for all your medication needs!
Source: World Health Organization
Admin Note:
This blog site has fixed its defaults to the administrator as author however our blog this month was collated by Dr Purity Wambui.
Our gratitude and thanks from the Leleshwa Team.