Exploring Antimicrobial Resistance

I am sure you have heard the term antibiotic resistance or antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the news lately. Today we will be exploring what it is and why we have been hearing about it so much lately.

What is AMR?

Antimicrobials are medicines used to treat infectious diseases that are caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites. Antibiotics are probably the most common and known antimicrobial. Most people have taken antibiotics at least once in their life. AMR is the resistance or ineffectiveness of medicines that help treat infections from microbes. This has become a big issue, as it has prevented modern medicine from treating common infections and diseases.

Why does AMR happen?

This is actually a naturally occurring phenomenon. The microbes that are treated with antimicrobials go through genetic changes over a period of time. The continued use of antimicrobial medicines have been a contributing factor to the rise in resistance. When these microbes are constantly exposed to the same antimicrobial medicine they are forced to react to resist it. Over a long time period they develop resistive traits that make them resistant to the antimicrobials. These resistive traits can breakdown the antimicrobials in the body using enzymes or protein, as well as remove the antibiotic from cells.

Why is AMR important?

There are many commonplace infections and diseases that we have developed antimicrobials for, that are at risk to not functioning properly. The microbes that develop the resistance traits tend to survive and multiply. They can also give or share their resistance traits to other microbes. This means resistance to our antimicrobials will spread and start becoming a more common issue. The resistance amongst antimicrobials are expected to increase in the decade. This has opened up the market for new types of antimicrobials and has increased the importance of antimicrobial research!

References

1. “Antimicrobial Resistance.” World Health Organization, 23 Nov. 2023, http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance. 
2. “How Antimicrobial Resistance Happens.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5 Oct. 2022, http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about/how-resistance-happens.html.