How the COVID Response Is Priming the Next Pandemic
A dramatic rise in antimicrobial overuse is fueling the rise of dangerous new pathogens
“Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest public health challenges of our time,” declares the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And while antibiotic resistance and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) took a backseat to the COVID-19 pandemic, the problem hasn’t gone away.
Antibiotic resistance (AR) refers to bacteria resistant to antibiotics. Antimicrobial resistance is a broader term used to describe resistance to drugs among a variety of microbes, including bacteria, parasites, viruses, and fungi.
The tragedy of this problem is that our body depends on many of these microbes for proper function. Current practices are harming these helpful microbes and creating more dangerous ones. The WHO (World Health Organization) says AMR is one of the top 10 global public health threats to humanity, but it rarely makes front-page news, especially now that COVID has entered the arena.