World Antibiotic Awareness Week 2021 (18-24 November): Spread Awareness Stop Resistance

World Antibiotic Awareness Week is celebrated from 18 to 24 November each year. This year the theme theme, Spread Awareness, Stop Resistance, calls on One Health stakeholders, policymakers, health care providers, and the general public to be Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Awareness champions.

Background Information:

What are Antimicrobials?

Antimicrobials – including antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitics – are medicines used to prevent and treat infections in humans, animals and plants.

What is Antimicrobial Resistance?

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.

As a result of drug resistance, antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines become ineffective and infections become increasingly difficult or impossible to treat.

What is Antimicrobial Resistance?

Why is Antimicrobial Resistance a global concern?

The emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens that have acquired new resistance mechanisms, leading to antimicrobial resistance, continues to threaten our ability to treat common infections. Especially alarming is the rapid global spread of multi- and pan-resistant bacteria (also known as “superbugs”) that cause infections that are not treatable with existing antimicrobial medicines such as antibiotics.

The clinical pipeline of new antimicrobials is dry. In 2019 WHO identified 32 antibiotics in clinical development that address the WHO list of priority pathogens, of which only six were classified as innovative. Furthermore, a lack of access to quality antimicrobials remains a major issue. Antibiotic shortages are affecting countries of all levels of development and especially in health- care systems.

Antibiotics are becoming increasingly ineffective as drug-resistance spreads globally leading to more difficult to treat infections and death.

The cost of AMR to national economies and their health systems is significant as it affects productivity of patients or their caretakers through prolonged hospital stays and the need for more expensive and intensive care.

Without effective tools for the prevention and adequate treatment of drug-resistant infections and improved access to existing and new quality-assured antimicrobials, the number of people for whom treatment is failing or who die of infections will increase. Medical procedures, such as surgery, including caesarean sections or hip replacements, cancer chemotherapy, and organ transplantation, will become more risky.

Why is Antimicrobial Resistance increasing?

AMR occurs naturally over time, usually through genetic changes. Antimicrobial resistant organisms are found in people, animals, food, plants and the environment (in water, soil and air). They can spread from person to person or between people and animals, including from food of animal origin.

The main drivers of antimicrobial resistance include

the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials;
lack of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) for both humans and animals;
poor infection and disease prevention and control in health-care facilities and farms;
poor access to quality, affordable medicines, vaccines and diagnostics;
lack of awareness and knowledge; and
lack of enforcement of legislation.

Why is Antimicrobial Resistance increasing?

Prevention and Control: Need for Coordinated Action

AMR is a complex problem that requires a united multisectoral approach. The One Health approach brings together multiple sectors and stakeholders engaged in human, terrestrial and aquatic animal and plant health, food and feed production and the environment to communicate and work together in the design and implementation of programmes, policies, legislation and research to attain better public health outcomes.

Greater innovation and investment is required in operational research, and in research and development of new antimicrobial medicines, vaccines, and diagnostic tools especially those targeting the critical gram-negative bacteria such as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae and Acinetobacter baumannii. The launch of the Antimicrobial Resistance Multi Partner Trust Fund (AMR MPTF), the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership (GARDP), AMR Action Fund and other funds and initiatives could fill a major funding gap.

How can you prevent Antimicrobial Resistance?