An expert at the World Health Organization has warned that antibiotics are among the most important scientific gains known to man in the medical and therapeutic field, thanks to which hundreds of millions of lives were saved because of all forms of infections that had no treatment in the pre-antibiotic era.
In an interview with Al Arabiya.net, Dr. Maha Talaat, the regional advisor for antimicrobial resistance and infection prevention and control in the World Health Organization Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, indicated that the risk is related to the misuse or excessive use of antibiotics in an irrational manner. It affected bacteria by making them become resistant to antibiotics and then losing them – or most of them losing the desired therapeutic effect and causing what we now know as antibiotic resistance.
When these bacteria are transmitted from person to person, doctors do not find the appropriate antibiotic to kill this bacteria, which has become a global threat to health and development, and calls for urgent measures to be taken to confront this threat to global health.
Public health threat facing humanity
The World Health Organization has declared that bacterial resistance to antibiotics is one of the ten major global threats to public health facing humanity, because the persistence and exacerbation of this problem means a return to the stage before the discovery and manufacture of antibiotics.
Dr. Maha added that antimicrobial resistance entails huge costs. In addition to the long-term illnesses that cause deaths and disabilities, they also result in patients’ prolonged stay in hospitals, their need for more expensive medicines, and their financial challenges.
The success of modern medicine in confronting infections, by many means, including major surgeries and chemotherapy for cancer, is threatened by increased risks without the use of successful antimicrobials due to the loss of their effectiveness due to antimicrobial resistance.
Infection type and treatment strategy
Dr. Maha emphasized that each type of infection has a treatment strategy that includes the type of antibiotic, the appropriate dose, and the duration of treatment that is determined by the treating physician only because he is the most knowledgeable of the patient’s health condition, and determines the treatment based on it. Therefore, the organization calls on everyone to completely avoid self-use of treatment without a prescription from the attending physician, and not to supplement the remaining antibiotics.
The World Health Organization official explained that the danger lies in the way antibiotics are dealt with, as the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics naturally appears over time through genetic changes, usually due to frequent use.
Antimicrobial resistant organisms are found in humans, animals, food, plants and the environment (in water, soil and air), and can be transmitted from person to person or between people and livestock, including foods of animal origin. This means that food, plants and the environment become threats to human health.
World Health Organization
Misuse of antimicrobials
The main drivers of the emergence of this resistance include the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials; lack of access to clean water and hygiene services for humans and animals; poor infection and disease prevention and control in health care facilities and farms; lack of access to quality and affordable medicines, vaccines and diagnostics; lack of awareness and knowledge; and non-enforcement of legislation.
Regarding the complications caused by antibiotics if they are used poorly, Dr. Maha stressed that the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics and their loss of curative and curative effect means that the infection that could have been stopped and cured turns into an infection that may be fatal, especially in the case of surgical interventions and infections in hospitals.
She concluded by saying: “We have to remember that antibiotics kill bacteria, but they have no power over viruses that cause cold and influenza infection, for example,” noting that these antibiotics are often prescribed wrongly to treat these diseases, or they are taken without proper medical supervision, which exposes the patient to complications. and various risks.