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AMR Antimicrobial Resistance
About AMR Antimicrobial Resistance
Antimicrobial resistance AMR is one of the top global public health threats. Bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites evolve resistance to the drugs used to treat them. Antibiotic resistance is particularly severe. Alexander Fleming predicted this in his 1945 Nobel lecture. A major 2022 study estimated that in 2019 bacterial AMR directly caused about 1.27 million deaths and was associated with nearly 5 million deaths globally. Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus MRSA causes thousands of deaths annually in the US. Multidrug or rifampicin resistant tuberculosis affected an estimated 410,000 people in 2022. AMR is driven by antibiotic overuse and misuse in human medicine and agriculture and by poor infection control. The WHO declared AMR a top 10 global health threat. New antibiotics are difficult to discover and poorly profitable. The antibiotic pipeline is dangerously thin. The 2016 Review on Antimicrobial Resistance projected that, without action, AMR could cause 10 million deaths annually by 2050. The One Health approach is essential as antibiotic use in livestock drives resistance.
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