With an ongoing global pandemic and a worsening climate crisis, it could be easy to overlook another emergency coming our way – and yet it could be humanity’s next biggest killer. Some of our most important medicines will increasingly fail.
These are our antimicrobial drugs – the medicines that combat infections caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites – until, that is, they encounter pathogens that are resistant to them.
The predictions relating to the global rise in antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, paint a frightening picture of life in 2050:
“Without policies to stop the worrying spread of AMR, today’s already large 700,000 deaths every year would become an extremely disturbing 10 million every year, more people than currently die from cancer.”Review on Antimicrobial Resistance (2016) commissioned by the UK government
It’s a seriousness situation, but a success story happening across the farms of the UK gives hope that something can be done.
Research led by Professor Mark Holmes from Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine has helped to change UK farming practices and reduce the rise of AMR in livestock. Holmes believes that now is the time to stress the positives of good antimicrobial stewardship.
