Vaccination & COVID 19

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the ability of microorganisms to persist or grow in the presence of drugs designed to inhibit or kill them. These drugs, called antimicrobials, are used to treat infectious diseases caused by microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, viruses and protozoan parasites.

When microorganisms become resistant to antimicrobials, standard treatments are often ineffective, and in some cases, no drugs provide effective therapy. Consequently, treatments fail. This increases illness and mortality in humans, animals and plants.  For agriculture, this causes production losses, damages livelihoods and jeopardizes food security. Moreover, AMR can spread among different hosts and the environment, and antimicrobial resistant microorganisms can contaminate the food chain.

Every time we use antimicrobials in people, animals and plants, germs have a chance to acquire the ability to tolerate the treatments by becoming resistant, making the drugs less effective over time.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global threat of increasing concern to human and animal health. It also has implications for food safety, food security and the economic wellbeing of millions of farming households.

The use of antimicrobials in animal and plant production is influenced by an interplay of many factors:

• Burden of diseases that are otherwise preventable through modification of environmental hygiene, nutrition, husbandry and other management practices;
• Limited access to animal and plant health experts, as well as limitations in training and support for these experts;
• The use of antimicrobials as growth and production promoters in animals;
• Lack of regulation and oversight of the use of antimicrobial drugs;
• Over the counter or internet sales that make antimicrobial drugs readily available;
• Availability and use of substandard and falsified antimicrobials;
• Lack of awareness regarding good practices, leading to excessive or inappropriate use;
• Anthropological, sociocultural, political and economic factors that pose barriers good practices.