WHO warns on rising resistance
A warning that the benefit of $17bn spent developing
new medicines in the past five years could be lost just as quickly has
been issued by the World Health Organization.
The warning was made as the WHO launched a global
strategy to contain the spread of resistance to medicines used to treat
infectious diseases. The strategy recommends obligatory prescription requirements
for antibiotics and the phasing out of antibiotics as growth promoters
in animal husbandry. Nearly 50 per cent of all antibiotic production is
currently used in agriculture.
“Rising resistance to antimicrobials is a problem
faced by both rich and poor communities in industrialised, as well as
developing, countries”, says Dr David Heymann, WHO executive director
for communicable diseases. “It has different roots in different societies,
but the net result and the imminent danger are the same.”
The WHO warning, issued on 11 September, says: “Without
concerted global action many of the dramatic breakthroughs made in medical
science over the past 50 years could be lost to the growing threat of
drug resistance. Antibiotics were one of the most significant discoveries
of the 20th century. Killer diseases such as tuberculosis, meningitis,
scarlet fever and pneumonia could suddenly be treated and cured. Unless
we act to protect these medical miracles, we could be heading for a post-antibiotic
age in which many medical and surgical advances could be undermined by
the risk of incurable infection.”
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