Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Aug 9;11(8):1082.
doi: 10.3390/antibiotics11081082.

Antimicrobial Resistance and Its Spread Is a Global Threat

Mohammed M Aljeldah  1
Affiliations
Review

Antimicrobial Resistance and Its Spread Is a Global Threat

Mohammed M Aljeldah. Antibiotics (Basel). .

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a challenge to human wellbeing the world over and is one of the more serious public health concerns. AMR has the potential to emerge as a serious healthcare threat if left unchecked, and could put into motion another pandemic. This establishes the need for the establishment of global health solutions around AMR, taking into account microdata from different parts of the world. The positive influences in this regard could be establishing conducive social norms, charting individual and group behavior practices that favor global human health, and lastly, increasing collective awareness around the need for such action. Apart from being an emerging threat in the clinical space, AMR also increases treatment complexity, posing a real challenge to the existing guidelines around the management of antibiotic resistance. The attribute of resistance development has been linked to many genetic elements, some of which have complex transmission pathways between microbes. Beyond this, new mechanisms underlying the development of AMR are being discovered, making this field an important aspect of medical microbiology. Apart from the genetic aspects of AMR, other practices, including misdiagnosis, exposure to broad-spectrum antibiotics, and lack of rapid diagnosis, add to the creation of resistance. However, upgrades and innovations in DNA sequencing technologies with bioinformatics have revolutionized the diagnostic industry, aiding the real-time detection of causes of AMR and its elements, which are important to delineating control and prevention approaches to fight the threat.

Keywords: Next Generation Sequencing; antibiotics; antimicrobial resistance; molecular diagnosis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Molecular mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and drug resistance.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A) Diagram highlighting the main steps that need to be implemented to minimize antimicrobial resistance. (B) Schematic representation of key aspects that can positively impact the global fight against AMR (modified from Dr. Razzaque’s paper).
Figure 3
Figure 3
AMR has highest disease burden (source: the review on antimicrobial resistance chaired by Jim O’Neill).
Figure 4
Figure 4
How surveillance can improve health outcomes.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Tan S.Y., Tatsumura Y. Alexander Fleming (1881–1955): Discoverer of penicillin. Singap. Med. J. 2015;56:366–367. doi: 10.11622/smedj.2015105. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Katz L., Baltz R.H. Natural product discovery: Past, present, and future. J. Ind. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 2016;43:155–176. doi: 10.1007/s10295-015-1723-5. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hutchings M.I., Truman A.W., Wilkinson B. Antibiotics: Past, present, and future. Curr. Opin Microbiol. 2019;51:72–80. doi: 10.1016/j.mib.2019.10.008. - DOI - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization The World is Running Out of Antibiotics, WHO Report Confirms. Sep, 2017. [(accessed on 22 May 2022)]. Available online: https://www.who.int/news/item/20-09-2017-the-world-is-running-out-of-ant....
    1. European Commission Public Health. EU Action on Antimicrobial Resistance. [(accessed on 22 May 2022)]. Available online: https://ec.europa.eu/health/antimicrobial-resistance/eu-action-antimicro....

LinkOut - more resources