Antimicrobial
Resistance

AMR infections are frequent in places where antibiotics are overused and misused. Without proper diagnostics, healthcare providers may not know if a patient’s symptoms are those of a bacterial infection, and if they are, which bacteria is involved. In contexts with limited access to healthcare, over-the-counter sale of antibiotics without a prescription is common. This can result in unnecessary antibiotic consumption. In hospitals with poor hygiene, resistant bacteria can spread, affecting vulnerable patients who are already sick or have unhealed wounds.

AMR infections often go unrecognized in their early stages, since they usually cause the same clinical symptoms as antibiotic-sensitive infections. Typically, they are identified only after the patient’s symptoms persist despite treatment with appropriate first-line antibiotics.

Infection prevention involves many different approaches, such as ensuring widescale population coverage with vaccines against infectious diseases, providing safe water and sanitation in communities and establishing effective infection control measures in hospitals and health clinics. When patients seek treatment for illnesses, doctors and health workers must avoid overusing antibiotics. Antibiotics should be prescribed by a clinician and provided by a pharmacy. Patients must also be aware that taking the prescribed dosage for the entire prescription period is of the utmost importance. Governments need to improve access to healthcare and healthcare infrastructure, such as microbiology laboratories that can accurately diagnose infections and point doctors to the correct prescription. Governments also need to better regulate over-the-counter sale of antibiotics.

Patients with an AMR infection have fewer antibiotic treatment options. These options are generally more expensive, more complicated to administer (intravenously rather than orally) and often more toxic with numerous side effects. For many types of highly resistant infections, where no current antibiotics are effective, patients may be treated either with some antibiotics that are abandoned due to their potentially dangerous side effects, or with a combination of antibiotics that together to overcome the resistance. When no antibiotics work, and the infection is localized to a limb, amputation may be the only hope for saving the patient’s life.