Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level : AMR
Mains level : Not Much
- India has joined the Global Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Research and Development (R&D) Hub as a new member.
Global AMR R&D Hub
- The Hub was launched in May 2018 in the margins of the 71st session of the World Health Assembly, following a call from G20 Leaders in 2017.
- It is supported through a Secretariat, established in Berlin and currently financed through grants from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG).
- It supports global priority setting and evidence-based decision-making on the allocation of resources for AMR R&D through the identification of gaps, overlaps and potential for cross-sectoral collaboration and leveraging in AMR R&D.
- From this year onward, India will be the member of Board of members of Global AMR R&D Hub.
- India looks forward to working with all partners to leverage their existing capabilities, resources and collectively focus on new R&D intervention to address drug resistant infections.
Back2Basics
Antimicrobial resistance
- Antimicrobial resistance (AMR or AR) is the ability of a microbe to resist the effects of medication that once could successfully treat the microbe
- The term antibiotic resistance is a subset of AMR, as it applies only to bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics.
- Antibiotics are medicines used to prevent and treat bacterial infections. Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria change in response to the use of these medicines.
- Bacteria, not humans or animals, become antibiotic-resistant.
- These bacteria may infect humans and animals, and the infections they cause are harder to treat than those caused by non-resistant bacteria.
- Antibiotic resistance occurs naturally, but misuse of antibiotics in humans and animals is accelerating the process.
- A growing number of infections – such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, and salmonellosis – are becoming harder to treat as the antibiotics used to treat them become less effective.
- It leads to higher medical costs, prolonged hospital stays, and increased mortality.