Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2021: How the environment plays a role in AMR

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the inability of the antimicrobial agent (commonly an antibiotic) to treat a person or animal suffering from infectious diseases when administered in standard doses. It has become one of the greatest challenges in the efforts to fight infectious diseases.

The well-documented public health impact of this phenomenon is immense.

The failure to halt or reverse this trend is likely to push the world into a post-antibiotic era where even small injuries may become difficult to treat and major developments in complex and life-saving technologies may get negated. In a low estimate, already, 700,000 people die each year of resistant infections.

The key factors contributing to AMR are misuse and overuse of antibiotics in human health, food-animal production and agriculture, along with poor management of waste emanating from households, farms, factories and human and veterinary healthcare facilities.