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Governments globally should push for universal health coverage to face the challenges posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR), experts deliberated at the Third Annual Global Media Forum on AMR held recently in the lead up to the World AMR Awareness Week (WAAW 2023) between November 18 and November 24 held annually.
The World Bank estimates that Global GDP could fall by Rs. 1 lakh crore to 2.8 lakh crore annually after 2030 due to AMR.
There are several issues of access and equity affecting AMR. Research and Development of new treatment options, including new antibiotics, is not prioritized due to a sector-wide market failure. As a result, countries globally are running out of treatment options and new drugs are not coming into the market. Even when new medicines finally reach the market, low-and middle-income countries (LMIC) are not able to access these due to intellectual property and pricing constraints.
According to Thomas Joseph, head, AMR Awareness, Advocacy and Campaigns, World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva, “AMR is a problem driven by misuse and overuse of antimicrobial medicines, including antibiotics and antivirals, and results in critical medicines losing effectiveness to treat infections. People working on AMR can learn from the rich history of HIV programmes especially in increasing awareness, securing behaviour change and in promoting local, national and global advocacy to address AMR effectively.”
Echoing similar views, Beatrice Atim Odwong Anywar, Uganda’s Minister of State for Environment, and Member of Global Leaders Group on AMR, said, “The United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting on AMR in 2024 is a critical opportunity to further accelerate the response to AMR. AMR is associated with nearly 50 lakh human deaths every year which occur overwhelmingly in the low-and middle-income countries like Uganda. It is in these countries where the burden of diseases is the greatest and the economic cost of AMR is also enormous.”
While narrating her story as an AMR Survivor, Vanessa Carter, an AMR patient survivor, One Health advocate, chairperson of the WHO Taskforce of AMR Survivors, and founder of The AMR Narrative, said, “In 2004, I had a severe car accident in Johannesburg, South Africa, and I ended up in a hospital with a lot of massive injuries including the face. Over the years following the accident, I have had 4 different prosthetics implants. To cut a long story short, I was diagnosed with an antibiotic resistant form of MRSA infection. After a lot of effort, I found a cranio-facial doctor in Johannesburg who did a surgery on my bone- the bone was cut and realigned. I got the infection back again in the bone and skin. I had to deal with that for another year. He rotated antibiotics until finally he could do a small touch-up plastic surgery so that I could uncover my face.”
“Whether we go for a surgery or cut our finger, better be careful to not get infected with a microbe that is resistant to medicines,” Carter cautioned after narrating the story.
Javier Yugueros Marcos, head of Department Antimicrobial Resistance and Veterinary Products, World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) informed that in 2019, 50 lakh human deaths worldwide were associated with bacterial AMR, of which more than 10 lakh human deaths were directly attributable to bacterial AMR.
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