The World Health Organisation has warned that if left unchecked, antimicrobial resistance , which already leads to 700,000 deaths globally each year, could potentially cause up to 10 million deaths annually by 2050.
This year’s theme – ‘handle antibiotics with care’, emphasizes the need to use antibiotics safely and responsibly across sectors, from agricultural and livestock production to public health, and also stresses the need to mitigate the impacts of antimicrobial pollution contaminating water and soil. “Key challenges in combating AMR include: weak regulatory systems facilitating proliferation of substandard and falsified medicines; limited implementation of standards for clean water, sanitation and hygiene, and to prevent and control infections; and a lack of reliable data.
“Twenty-four countries have legislation on the prescription and sale of antimicrobials for human use and six have national monitoring systems for consumption and rational use of antimicrobials in human health. Together, we need to accelerate action to reduce the increasing prevalence of drug-resistant infections”.