NUNZIUM

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections more complicated to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death. Antimicrobials, including antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitics, are medicines used to treat infections in humans, animals and plants. As a result of drug resistance, antibiotics and other antimicrobial medications become ineffective, and infections become increasingly difficult or impossible to treat. The emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens that have acquired new resistance mechanisms, leading to antimicrobial resistance, continue to threaten our ability to treat common infections. In general, it is through the intensive use of antibiotics that microbes evolve to become resistant. Especially alarming is the rapid global spread of multi- and pan-resistant bacteria (also known as "superbugs") that cause infections that are not treatable with existing antimicrobial medicines such as antibiotics. On top of this growing issue, the clinical pipeline of new antimicrobials is "dry". In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified 32 antibiotics in clinical development that address the WHO list of priority pathogens, of which only six were classified as innovative.

A significant contribution to antimicrobial resistance is the use of antibiotics in animal farming. Although antibiotics can be necessary to treat infections in livestock, they are often used to speed up animal growth and prevent diseases among animals in crowded, unsanitary conditions. Researchers struggle to calculate the antibiotics used in particular countries because most do not publicly release their agricultural-antibiotic usage data. Many release the data to the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), which groups countries' antibiotics data into continents - so that is all that researchers can see. However, around 40% of countries do not report antibiotic use. Two epidemiologists at the Swiss federal institute of technology (ETH) analysed antibiotic usage in animal farming by collecting data from individual governments, farm surveys and scientific articles that reported veterinary use of antibiotics. They cross-referenced these with data on farm-animal populations worldwide and on antibiotic sales from the 42 countries that reported those data publicly. The team calculated that antibiotic use in Africa is probably twice what WOAH writes, and use in Asia is 50% higher than reported. China is currently using more antibiotics in farming than any other country. Pakistan will experience the highest use growth between 2020 and 2030. The researchers also estimate that antibiotic use will grow the fastest in Africa, rising by 25% between 2020 and 2030 owing to increased demand for meat products. Making usage data more publicly accessible could lead to increased accountability for countries and agricultural producers that do not use antibiotics responsibly.