Anti-Microbial Resistance and Red Line Campaign

Anti-microbial resistance (AMR) is a worldwide danger to human health and growth. To live blissfully and accomplish the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), rapid large sectoral action is required. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is believed that incorrect and excessive use of antibiotics, biocontrols, and antiseptics will have severe consequences for antibiotic stewardship programmes and AMR management worldwide. According to the World Health Organisation, AMR is among the top ten public health problems facing humanity. What is anti-microbial resistance (AMR), though?

What Is Anti-microbial Resistance (AMR)?

The WHO says that anti-microbial resistance (AMR) originates at the time when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites evolve and fail to react to antibiotics, making diseases more difficult to cure and raising the risk of disease transmission, chronic condition, and death. Antibiotics and other medications become useless due to drug tolerance, and illnesses become more difficult or even impossible to cure.

Drug-resistant bacteria have developed new defence systems, contributing to anti-microbial resistance, and remain a significant threat to our potential to cure common diseases. The increasing global development of these bacteria and viruses, now popularly called “superbugs”, spread diseases insensitive to the present anti-microbial medications such as antibiotics, which is particularly concerning. 

The Facts and Figures Related to Anti-microbial Resistance (AMR) 

• The review on antimicrobial resistance states that by 2050, drug-resistant infections might kill 10 million people each year, wreaking economic havoc comparable to the international economic meltdown of 2008-2009. Anti-microbial resistance might push up to 24 million families into poverty by 2030.

• Anti-microbial resistant neonatal infections kill 60,000 infants in India every year.

• Bacteria resistant to at least first-line antibiotic treatments produce about 2 million infections in the United States each year, forcing the US health system to spend over $20 billion.

• Around 70% of diarrheal diseases are triggered by viral infections, which are resistant to medications. However, antibiotics are routinely used to treat diarrhoea.

Reasons for Anti-microbial Resistance

Some of the major reasons for anti-microbial resistance are:

• When human and animal health experts overmedicate antibiotics or when individuals don’t take them as prescribed. Some pathogens die when antibiotics are used, but the resistant ones can live and even reproduce and cause genetic mutation. Antibiotic misuse increases the prevalence of these anti-microbial resistant microorganisms. 

• It is also caused due to poor hygiene and lack of sanitation to curb the transmission of the infection, such as not washing hands correctly. Poor sanitation, as well as infection prevention and control, can provide resistant bacteria and other pathogens more opportunities to propagate, making more people sick. It will increase the demand for medicines, and cleanliness is the most effective strategy to prevent the transmission of illnesses, especially those resistant to antibiotics. 

• Consumption of contaminated food, drinking contaminated water or being in direct contact with contaminated objects can also be one of the reasons for anti-microbial resistance.

What Can We Do to Combat Anti-microbial Resistance?

Some of the initiatives to combat AMR are as follows:

• Red Line Campaign 

At the International Conference on Anti-microbial Resistance, India’s Union Health Minister declared that the initial move in combating AMR is first to minimise the need for antibiotics. To tackle these difficulties that arise from anti-microbial resistance, India’s Red Line programme, which places a red line on medicines packages, is a sign of hope that raises public awareness and underlines the dangers of antibiotic overuse and irrational use.

The Red Line Campaign was launched in February 2016, and all antibiotics now have a visible red line on the box. Antibiotics and their hazards were the campaign’s focus, which attempted to restrict their overuse beyond the primary healthcare setting. This programme aims to prevent unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions and over-the-counter sales, leading to drug resistance.

• World Anti-microbial Awareness Week (WAAW)

WAAW, held every year since 2015, is a global initiative aimed at raising anti-microbial resistance awareness and promoting best practices among the common people, healthcare staff, and governments to reduce the growth and progression of drug-resistant illnesses.

• Global Action Plan on Anti-microbial Resistance (GAP)

During the 2015 World Health Assembly, governments agreed to the framework outlined in the Global Action Plan1 (GAP) 2015 on AMR and the design and implementation of sector-wide national action plans. It was later recognised by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health’s Governing Bodies (OIE).

Conclusion 

Antibiotics have made enormous advances in medicine, increasing human longevity and making infectious death a thing of the past (almost). Because no alternative to antibiotics has yet been developed, the emergence of anti-microbial resistant superbugs threatens to destroy all these medical advancements. Several nations and international organisations are attempting to prevent anti-microbial resistance on a large scale. However, it is also our responsibility to assist our countries. If nothing else, we can at least raise awareness and follow fundamental sanitisation guidelines to avert future crises.