“We Are Losing Our Strongest Allies Against Infectious Diseases” - Dr. Alexander Sturm for European Biopharmaceutical Review (EBR)

Antibiotics are marvellous weapons against infectious diseases. 100 years ago, severe bacterial infections would likely cause death due to lack of effective treatments. Only with the advance of (…) different antibiotics clinicians could prevent people from dying of systemic bacterial infections. However, shortly after their introduction, pathogenic strains developed antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and limited treatment options (…).

Reducing the selection pressure for antibiotic resistance is vital to slow the spread of AMR as resistant mechanisms evolve fast and will catch up with the development of new drugs. To reduce selection pressure, unnecessary prescriptions need to be significantly reduced and narrow-spectrum antibiotics favoured over broad-spectrum (…).

The spread of AMR has many similarities to climate change. Both have been proven by the scientific community, but are happening imperceptively slowly. A sense of urgency to act is, therefore, barely existent.”

To learn more about how antibiotic resistance and antibiotic tolerance are hindering our ability to slow the spread of infectious diseases read an excellent review article in EBR by Dr. Alex Sturm, Senior Scientist at Resistell: https://en.calameo.com/read/006113385becd4c53c938?PAGE=66

This article is taken from European Biopharmaceutical Review October 2021, pages 66-68. © Samedan Ltd