Antimicrobial resistance occurs when microorganisms become resistant to treatment. Microorganisms or microbes are small living organisms that are present everywhere. They can be found in the air we breathe, the soil we walk on, the water we drink, and even inside the human body. Common types of microbes are bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites.
Microorganisms do not always cause diseases. Some living within the human body help with digestion and even prevent infection by other microbes. However, others are capable of causing diseases with varying severity.
What are Antimicrobials?
Antimicrobials are medications that prevent or treat the diseases caused by these harmful microbes. They are of various types, including antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals, and antiparasitics. Each type of antimicrobial plays an essential role in treating a specific type of microorganism.
What is Antimicrobial Resistance?
Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) is a phenomenon that describes the ability of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites to resist treatment by antimicrobials. Today, AMR is a significant global health challenge.
Why you should be concerned about Antimicrobial Resistance
Antimicrobials have multiple uses in treating infectious diseases, and almost all modern medical technology depends on them. They help fight deadly infections like tuberculosis, meningitis, and pneumonia. They aid with specialist cancer care and antimicrobial chemotherapy treatment. Antimicrobials are also used to sterilize operating rooms, help deliver babies, and help reduce the risk of early infection in people with fresh organ transplantation. All of these benefits solely rely on how effective the antimicrobials are against the microbes they are used to treat.
AMR occurs when these microbes change over time, either by random mutation or surviving treatment through natural selection, leaving behind more resistant strains, which can then multiply over time. This constitutes a major problem for modern medicine, as conditions that were once treatable before may now constitute global health issues.
AMR is a natural consequence of human behavior regarding medication usage because microbes are living organisms that are capable of evolving to survive. Changing our behavior in simple ways can go a long way in reducing the overall impact of AMR.
Causes of Antimicrobial Resistance
Some of the common causes include:
- Overuse of antimicrobials
- Failure to complete your course of antibiotic therapy
- Overuse of antimicrobials in livestock farming
- Poor infection control in healthcare settings
- Poor hygiene and sanitation
- The relative absence of newer antimicrobials
What You Can Do About AMR
Having strong infection prevention and control practices is perhaps the best and easiest way to reduce the risk of transmitting infections, as this reduces any harmful microbes before they can cause any infection in the first place, avoiding the need for specific antimicrobial treatments.
Understanding how infections develop through the chain of infection and breaking it through practices such as good hand washing, catching coughs, colds, and sneezes, adequate cleaning in the house, in the office and in healthcare settings, and general awareness of the issues will also help.
Minimizing our overall environmental exposure through effective water treatment and agricultural procedures are also important. Rational use of antimicrobials such as antibiotics and the development of more targeted narrow spectrum treatments is also important.
Ultimately, we need to change the way we use antimicrobials by using them only when they are absolutely needed and in a minimal amount so that we can slow down the rise of resistant microorganisms.
Join the struggle against antimicrobial resistance! You just might be saving the human race.
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