Today at the United Nations General Assembly Meeting, all 193 member countries are set to agree to combat antimicrobial resistance, “the biggest threat to modern medicine”.
I couldn’t be happier. Antimicrobial resistance has been well-known to scientists since the first antibiotic, penicillin, was created. But it has only been in the last few years that global attention has been drawn to the issue. I believe that this is due to the advocacy of those of us on the front-line. It is frustrating to be confronted by a commonplace urinary tract infection or bloodstream infection and not have any antibiotics to use.
Antibiotic resistance is estimated to kill 700,000 people worldwide. That’s an underestimate for sure. When I was on elective at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Ghana in 2007 I noted that they didn’t have an antibiogram and that all patients got one of a small number of antibiotics. I doubt anyone knows what the attributable mortality due to antimicrobial resistance is in similar settings. Antimicrobial resistance is a global threat. It only makes sense that organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank recognize that. It’s an overdue welcome.
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), the organization that “represents physicians, scientists and other health care professionals who specialize in infectious diseases” has long been advocating for both national and global change to combat antimicrobial resistance. Some of their goals are encouraging federal funding to support surveillance, research and data collection and incentives to support the development of new diagnostics and antibiotics.
The antimicrobial resistance problem is confounded by the lack of research into the development of new antibiotics. Now 13 leading pharmaceutical companies worldwide, including Pfizer, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, and Merck have also pledged to do their part in combating antimicrobial resistance. It remains to be seen what that means.
The UN General Assembly Meeting on Antibiotic Resistance is hopefully the start of something good! That too remains to be seen. On a personal level, I remember those September weeks when I was in high school that my father would come home late day after day because the UN General Assembly was in session. In the years after, when he was no longer based in the US, I knew to schedule my trips home to New York from college or from medical school to coincide with the UN General Assembly because for sure my father was coming to the States then. Unfortunately, based on my observations, I’m skeptical that any true action or accountability will come out of the UN addressing antimicrobial resistance. We need more than meetings, discussions, and signed declarations. We need action!
“There is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant”.
Alexander Fleming, 1945
Leave a Reply