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INFECTION CONTROL
Combating the growing
antimicrobial resistance threat Amy Sarcevic
For almost two years, the gaze of the public, healthcare system and media has been fixated on a very blatant public health threat; all the while, a ‘silent pandemic’ has been quietly gripping the world for decades.
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ntimicrobial resistance (AMR) — where bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites learn to outsmart the drugs designed to kill them — is one of the top ten public health threats facing humanity, according to the World Health Organisation1. Currently claiming 700,000 lives each year2, AMR is set to incur a death toll of 10 million people by 20502, dealing a US$100 trillion blow to the global economy. While analogies with COVID-19 have been drawn, Distinguished Professor Antoine van Oijen and Associate Professor Spiros Miyakis from the Molecular Horizons Research Institute at the University of Wollongong believe AMR is in many ways more comparable to the current climate crisis — for three important reasons. They claim these reasons give clues on how we can best combat the AMR problem.
Agricultural contribution
Much like the climate crisis, in which emissions come from cattle and sheep, 34
HOSPITAL + HEALTHCARE
SUMMER 2022
agriculture plays a big role in AMR, with a large portion of antibiotic-resistant bacteria originating from livestock. “Around the world, farmers are feeding antibiotics to livestock in large quantities, often for therapeutic reasons, but also as a growth promoter, since antibiotics are linked to weight gain. As a result, bacteria within these animals are learning how to fight back and become resistant to the medication. These bacteria can migrate into humans and bring their resistance with them, even if their human host has never before received a prescription,” van Oijen said. While health professionals may be powerless to effect change within agriculture, it is important to recognise this key mechanism by which AMR can take place, researchers say. “Every time you write a prescription for antibiotics, you are threatening not just that individual’s chances of responding well
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