The World Health Organization has rung alarm bells stating that antibiotic resistance is rising and countries are doing very little to address this issue. The health agency urged that member nations should step up efforts and have national plans to control the use of antibiotics and encourage new drug research.
In its recent analysis involving global countries, WHO experts elaborated that while much activity is underway and many governments are committed to addressing the problem, there are major gaps in actions needed across all 6 WHO regions to prevent the misuse of antibiotics and reduce spread of antimicrobial resistance.
This is the single greatest challenge in infectious diseases today," said, Dr Keiji Fukuda, WHO's Assistant Director-General for Health Security. "All types of microbes-including many viruses and parasites-are becoming resistant to medicines. Of particularly urgent concern is the development of bacteria that are progressively less treatable by available antibiotics. This is happening in all parts of the world, so all countries must do their part to tackle this global threat."
A year ago, WHO had issued a hard-hitting study on the phenomenon, cautioning that without significant action the world would be headed for "a post-antibiotic era". Dr Fukuda further added that antimicrobial resistance is a serious threat and member nations must exercise urgent steps to address this issue.
WHO, countries and partners have developed a draft Global Action Plan to combat antimicrobial resistance, including antibiotic resistance, which has been submitted to the sixty-eighth World Health Assembly, taking place in May 2015.
Governments will be asked to approve the plan and, in doing so, declare their commitment to address a problem that threatens global health as we know it.
