Antimicrobial Resistance: The Urgent Need For Solutions Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) is a global threat for us all. If left to develop unchallenged it would impact on the world to a scale we only dare to imagine. EU researchers are to play a key role in minimising the potentially devastating effects of an AMR era, whilst pioneering new treatments. By Richard Forsyth
Growing resistance to antibiotics is one of the biggest challenges to public health today. We need to find new ways to prevent people from dying from infections that have been treatable for decades, until resistance rendered our drugs ineffective
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t might be startling for many to comprehend that some healthcare pundits are already referring to the current era as the post antibiotic age – it seems like an unlikely and alarmist statement. Yet, anyone going to a doctor in Europe recently may have noticed that their coughs and throat infections are less likely to be remedied by a prescription of antibiotics, in contrast to previous visits. There is very good reason for this. Healthcare workers are now aware that, put simply, antibiotics aren’t working well anymore and there aren’t any new ones. There have been only two new classes of antibiotics put on the market during the past 30 years. In the UK alone, 35 million antibiotics are prescribed each year and 70% of bacteria are resistant to them. Indeed – one of the problems is the very fact that we have relied on them too readily – to the point where their abundant use on a wide scale has given some of the most notorious ‘bugs’ the chance to adapt and become resistant to them. Overuse and the development of AMR for all of us is a very serious threat. The worst case scenarios for future projections of AMR are sobering. Currently, around 25,000 people die in Europe from infections
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resistant to antibiotics annually. Statistically – with the population of Europe scaled in at around 743 million this may not scare many of impending doom scenarios. However, the latest EU-wide data on antibiotic resistance in humans, published by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control indicated that resistance in certain bacteria has nearly doubled in just three years. This escalation shows that if the problem of antibiotic resistance is left unchecked and unchallenged there is a terrifying potential we will be to dragged back to the dark ages in terms of healthcare choices. The human cost of having no ‘magic bullet’ of antibiotics to prescribe is staggering to comprehend. If research and initiatives to thwart antibiotic resistance suddenly ceased and we let nature take its course it’s estimated 10 million people a year, around the world, would die by 2050. To get a sense of perspective on that number – that’s almost two million more than currently lose their lives to cancer every year. This figure was calculated from a conservative forecast published in the first part of a report called the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, commissioned by the UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron, released in December 2014.
EU Research