Antibiotics are drugs that are very valuable in treating or preventing all sorts of infections caused by bacteria. Nevertheless, the more antibiotics are used, the more bacteria develop resistance to them. This is natural, and it is happening all over the world, particularly where antibiotics are used, overused and misused. Antibiotics use has to be balanced: they should be used only when they are needed for therapeutic reasons.
Did you know?
Possible consequences
If the overuse and misuse of antibiotics are not stopped, antibiotics might not be effective any more when people need them. Imagine your doctor saying that there is no treatment for your child or your friend because he or she has a bacterial infection that antibiotics can no longer treat. Already, 25 000 people in the EU, Iceland and Norway die every year from bacterial infections that do not respond to antibiotics and mostly occur in hospitals. Society could return to a time before antibiotics were available, when simple infections could mean a death sentence.
Resistant bacteria are emerging and spreading rapidly. Today some bacteria are resistant to multiple agents, making life-threatening infections such as blood-stream infections or pneumonia potentially untreatable. Further, the loss of effective prevention through antibiotics could make a number of advanced medical interventions and diagnostic tests – such as arthroscopy, hip replacements and colon surgery – impossible because antibiotics would not protect against potential bacterial infections.
Antibiotic resistance is an urgent concern for everybody. To stop its increase, everyone has the responsibility to use antibiotics only when needed and prescribed by a doctor.
Many countries in the WHO European Region have public awareness campaigns to reduce antibiotic use, and these are making a difference. Everyone can help to tackle this problem.
What you can do
Points to remember
Definitions: antibiotics and antibiotic resistance
Antibiotics are a subclass of antimicrobial agents that are active only against bacteria. They can either be naturally derived from bacteria or moulds (fungi) or produced synthetically. Scientifically, “antibiotic” refers only to naturally produced antimicrobial agents, but this text uses the term to mean all drugs or agents against bacterial infections.
The emergence of resistance to antibiotics is a natural biological phenomenon that occurs when antibiotics are used. Antibiotic resistance results from the ability of bacteria to withstand attack by antibiotics, which can develop either through mutation or by acquiring resistance genes from other bacteria that are already resistant.
The main drivers of antibiotic resistance are the use of antibiotics, especially overuse (but also misuse and underuse) and the transmission and spread of already resistant bacterial strains or genes that carry the information on resistance.
For further information on antibiotic resistance, please contact:
Dr Bernardus Ganter
Senior Adviser, Antimicrobial Resistance, Division of Communicable Diseases, Health Security and Environment
WHO Regional Office for Europe
Scherfigsvej 8
DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø
Denmark
Tel.: +45 39 17 14 23
E-mail: bga@euro.who.int [1]
For further information and interview requests, please contact:
Ms Viv Taylor Gee
Regional Adviser, Communications
WHO Regional Office for Europe
Scherfigsvej 8
DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø
Denmark
Tel.: + 45 39 17 12 31
E-mail: VGE@euro.who.int [2]
Links:
[1] mailto:bga@euro.who.int
[2] mailto:VGE@euro.who.int