Antibiotics:
World leaders sign groundbreaking UN declaration to tackle 'biggest
global health threat'
If
antibiotics lose their effectiveness then key medical procedures –
including gut surgery, caesarean sections, joint replacements and
chemotherapy – could become too dangerous to perform
Adam Withnall
World leaders are
poised to sign a "landmark" UN declaration and commit more
than £600 million to fighting what has been termed "our biggest
global health threat" - antibiotics.
The rise of
so-called "superbugs" that are resistant to antibiotic
treatments, and the threat they pose to modern medicine, will be
recognised in a pledge signed by officials from 193 countries at the
UN General Assembly in New York.
It follows a UK-led
drive to raise awareness of the potential impact of antimicrobial
resistance (AMR), which England’s chief medical officer described
as "the greatest future threat to our civilisation".
Professor Dame Sally
Davies, England’s chief medical officer, said: “This declaration
is the culmination of six years of hard work and I am extremely proud
that every UN member state is now engaged in the enormous task of
tackling the greatest future threat to our civilisation.
“Drug-resistant
infections are firmly on the global agenda, but now the real work
begins. We need governments, the pharmaceutical industry, health
professionals and the agricultural sector to follow through on their
commitments to save modern medicine.”
Every signatory of
the UN declaration will agree to:
Develop
surveillance and regulatory systems on the use and sales of
antimicrobial medicines for humans and animals
Encourage
innovative ways to develop new antibiotics
Educate health
professionals and raise public awareness on how to prevent
drug-resistant infections
The special meeting
on Wednesday will be only the fourth time in its 70-year history that
the UN has met specifically to discuss a health issue.
If antibiotics lose
their effectiveness then key medical procedures – including gut
surgery, caesarean sections, joint replacements and chemotherapy –
could become too dangerous to perform.
Health leaders from
around the world have raised serious concerns about the growing
resistance to antimicrobial drugs, which destroy harmful microbes.
Antibiotics are the best known of these drugs, but there are others –
such as antivirals, antimalarial drugs and antifungals.
Around 700,000
people around the world die annually due to drug-resistant infections
such as TB, HIV and malaria. If no action is taken, it has been
estimated that drug-resistant infections will kill 10 million people
a year by 2050.
UK Health Secretary
Jeremy Hunt said: “Antimicrobial resistance is perhaps our biggest
global health threat – it could nullify the progress of over a
century of modern medicine and kill millions.
Read more
“So I am proud
that this country has led the charge and rallied the international
action necessary to tackle the problem.
“We are determined
to build on our domestic achievements – thanks to the hard work of
NHS staff, hospital-acquired infections have been halved, and GPs
prescribed 2.7 million fewer items this year compared to last – but
we’ll couple that with global leadership as together we face up to
a huge challenge.”
Earlier this year,
Lord O’Neill called for a $2bn (£1.53bn) investment in global
innovation funding to tackle AMR by 2020 following his review on the
subject.
Lord O’Neill set
out a series of key recommendations to help combat the threat of AMR.
One of his proposals
suggests that big pharmaceutical companies should “play or pay” –
meaning they either join the search to hunt for new antibiotics or be
forced to pay a fine. Those who do and find successful new treatments
should be rewarded handsomely.
Another called for
better use of diagnostic tools to prevent patients being given
antibiotics unnecessarily.
Antimicrobial
Resistance Q and A
WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
Germs have higher
chances of developing resistance to a drug if the drug is not used
properly. If a drug is not used long enough or taken for the wrong
reason, or if low levels of the drug are common in the environment,
the germs can survive and adapt.
Doctors are already
facing situations in which they are helpless against infections that
used to be easily treated with antibiotics, Fukuda said. All types of
microbes, including bacteria, viruses and fungi have been shrugging
off attacks from the medicines designed to stop them. Experts
estimate that 700,000 people die around the world each year from
drug-resistant germs, and they expect the number to grow sharply.
Dr. Tom Frieden,
director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said
the problem may also affect doctors' willingness to do chemotherapy,
organ transplants, or other treatments that might put a patient at
risk of uncontrollable infections. "It can undermine modern
medicine," he said.
WHY DO WE OVERUSE
THESE DRUGS?
Often because of
good intentions and bad decisions. For example, antibiotics don't
work against viral illnesses like colds and flu. But doctors often
prescribe them anyway to patients looking for some kind of treatment
for their respiratory infections, experts say. Companies that raise
livestock routinely prescribe antibioticsto try to stave off costly
infections in herds and flocks.
WHY ARE THERE SO FEW
NEW ANTIBIOTICS?
A major reason is
that it is very hard for drugmakers to earn any money selling new
antibiotics, so they don't want to spend the money needed to develop
them. Patients don't need to be on antibiotics for very long, which
means they won't be buying large amounts of the drug. And doctors are
likely to prescribe any newantibiotics only in cases where older,
cheaper ones don't work first.
WHY NOW?
One factor is that
world leaders are starting to worry about the economic threats from
the problem. A 2014 report commissioned by the United Kingdom
projected that by 2050 it will kill more people each year than cancer
and cost the world as much as $100 trillion in lost economic output.
The World Bank this
week released a report saying drug-resistant infections have the
potential to cause at least as much economic damage as the 2008
financial crisis.
WHAT CAN THE U.N.
DO?
For now, just draw
more attention to the problem. That's what happened on the three
other occasions the U.N. held a special session on a health issue —
on the AIDS virus in 2001, on non-communicable diseases in 2011, and
on Ebola in 2014.
The U.N. will adopt
a declaration that endorses an action plan approved last year by an
international meeting of health ministers. The declaration recognizes
the size of the problem and encourages countries to come up with
plans — and money — to cut back on antibiotic use, make better
use of vaccines to prevent infections in the first place, and fund
development of new drugs.
"We need new
antibiotics, but in all likelihood we're not going to invent our way
out of this," Frieden said.
Associated Press
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário