Ankit Kumar
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Written By: Ankit Kumar | Updated : April 29, 2024 1:01 PM IST
Covid-19 worsened The Spread of Antimicrobial Resistance: WHO
The World health Organisation(WHO) concluded that indiscriminate use of antibiotics during COVID-19 pandemic worldwide is a possible reason behind worsening of antimicrobial resistance(AMR).
The WHO report found that nearly 75% of patients used antibiotics thinking "it might help". However the report also emphasised that only 8% of covid patients who were hospitalised needed antibiotics for bacterial co-infection.
Antimicrobial resistance(AMR) is a major worldwide public health issue that caused nearly 1.27 million deaths directly and played a role in deaths of 4.9 million people in 2019 world wide.
A Global Concern
During the Covid-19 pandemic a large number of antibiotics were used. From 2020-22 there was 83% increase in use of antibiotics in African and Eastern Mediterranean Regions. Western countries also observed a 33% rise in use of antibiotics, as per the World Health Organisation.
The WHO report
The report from WHO also said " people who had severe or critical Covid-19 used antibiotics the most i'e 81% worldwide. However, the use of antibiotics varied a lot by region in mild to moderate cases and African regions had the highest use at 79%".
Dr. Silvia Bertagnolio, who is leading WHO unit studying AMR said " People who really need antibiotics usually help more than they cause problems like side effects of antibiotic resistance. But if they are not needed, they don't help and can cause problems like making antibiotic resistance worse.
The findings highlight the requirement of use of antibiotics wisely to control unnecessary harm to patients and communities.
Antimicrobial resistance is a stage where bacteria change to stop antibiotics from working against them. That makes it harder to treat some infections. Too much use of antibiotics and in the wrong way cause this issue. To fight this problem, take antibiotics only when the doctor prescribes it. However, viruses, fungi and parasites also develop drug resistance. Here are some worse sides of drug resistance or antimicrobial resistance.
Antibiotic resistance is a serious issue as it limits the medicines effects on sick people.
Data Source
The information is gathered from records of 4,50,000 covid affected patients of 65 countries who were admitted to hospital during January 2020 to March 2023. The data is collected from the WHO clinical platform for Covid- 19.
The report will be further shown on a WHO banner at the ESCMID Global Congress in Barcelona, Spain from April 27-30.
