- News : The World Economic Forum (WEF), supported by the Unified Coalition for AMR Response, launched the Davos Compact to unlock sustainable public and private financing. The goal is to reduce global AMR deaths and save over 100 million lives by 2050.
- Understanding Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)
- Definition: AMR is when germs (bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites) change so that the medicines that used to kill them no longer work, making infections harder to treat.
- While AMR is a natural genetic process over time, it is significantly accelerated by human activity, primarily the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials.
- Impact in India: Approximately 6 lakh lives are lost annually due to resistant infections.
- Negative impact due to Rising AMR:
- Increase chance of deaths: Common infections can become fatal when standard drugs no longer work.
- Longer, more severe illness: People stay sicker for longer and recover more slowly because treatments fail or take longer to work.
- Higher healthcare costs: Care becomes more expensive due to longer hospital stays, extra tests, and use of pricier or multiple drugs.
- Threat to routine medical care: Surgeries, chemotherapy, and childbirth become riskier because they rely on effective antimicrobials to prevent or treat infections.
- Faster global spread and harder outbreaks: Resistant germs travel across communities and borders, making outbreaks harder to control and contain.
- Key Initiatives in India
- National Action Plan on AMR 2.0 (2025-2029): A coordinated effort integrating human, animal, agricultural, and environmental sectors (One Health approach).
- Nafithromycin: Launched in 2024 as India’s first indigenous antibiotic, specifically designed to treat both typical and atypical drug-resistant bacteria.
- Surveillance: National networks generate annual reports and contribute data to the Global AMR Surveillance System (GLASS).
- Global Efforts
- Global Action Plan (GAP): Adopted during the 2015 World Health Assembly.
- UN General Assembly (2024): A high-level meeting set a target to reduce global deaths associated with bacterial AMR by 10% by 2030 (using 2019 as the baseline).
