World Health Day 2011 Aims to Fight Against Antimicrobial Resistance

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New Delhi (ABC Live): We live in an era in which we depend on antibiotics, and other antimicrobial medicines to treat conditions those decades ago, or even a few years ago in the case of HIV/AIDS, would have proved fatal.

When antimicrobial resistance - also known as drug resistance - occurs, it renders these medicines ineffective.

On World Health Day 2011 i.e. 7 April 2011, WHO will call on governments and stakeholders to implement the policies and practices needed to prevent and counter the emergence of highly resistant microorganisms.

On World Health Day 2011, WHO will introduce a six-point policy package to combat the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

Antimicrobial resistance - the theme of World Health Day 2011 - and its global spread, threatens the continued effectiveness of many medicines used today to treat infectious diseases.

Facts on Antimicrobial Resistance

About 440 000 new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) emerge annually, causing at least 150 000 deaths. Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has been reported in 64 countries to date.

Resistance to earlier generation antimalarial medicines such as chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine is widespread in most malaria-endemic countries.

Falciparum malaria parasites resistant to artemisinins are emerging in South-East Asia; infections show delayed clearance after the start of treatment (indicating resistance).

A high percentage of hospital-acquired infections are caused by highly resistant bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci.

Resistance is an emerging concern for treatment of HIV infection, following the rapid expansion in access to antiretroviral medicines in recent years; national surveys are underway to detect and monitor resistance.

Ciprofloxacin is the only antibiotic currently recommended by WHO for the management of bloody diarrhoea due to Shigella organisms, now that widespread resistance has developed to other previously effective antibiotics. But rapidly increasing prevalence of resistance to ciprofloxacin is reducing the options for safe and efficacious treatment of shigellosis, particularly for children. New antibiotics suitable for oral use are badly needed.

AMR has become a serious problem for treatment of gonorrhoea (caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae), involving even “last-line” oral cephalosporins, and is increasing in prevalence worldwide. Untreatable gonococcal infections would result in increased rates of illness and death, thus reversing the gains made in the control of this sexually transmitted infection.

New resistance mechanisms, such as the beta-lactamase NDM-1, have emerged among several gram-negative bacilli. This can render powerful antibiotics, which are often the last defence against multi-resistant strains of bacteria, ineffective.