Pharmacists must recognise 'catastrophic threat' of antimicrobial resistance
Public health Pharmacists must be fully aware of the “catastrophic threat” of antimicrobial resistance, which could result in people dying of minor surgery and routine operations across England unless action is taken, the government's chief medical officer has warned.
Pharmacists must be fully aware of the "catastrophic threat" of antimicrobial resistance, which could result in people dying of minor surgery and routine operations unless action is taken, England's chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies has warned.
Pharmacists and other healthcare professionals needed to "understand and communicate effectively and efficiently" about infection and the importance of antimicrobial stewardship, Professor Davies said in the second volume of her 2011 annual report, published yesterday (March 11), adding that action was needed to combat the next generation of infections.
The report's chapter on antimicrobial resistance, whose authors included England's chief pharmaceutical officer Keith Ridge, stressed that education and training of all healthcare professionals was vital to improve the appropriate use of antibiotics.
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"If we don't act now, any one of us could go into hospital in 20 years for minor surgery and die because of an ordinary infection that can't be treated by antibiotics" Professor Dame Sally Davies Department of Health |
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The newly formed Health Education England (HEE) would need to consider its role, the report said, "but developing and embedding antimicrobial stewardship competences in professional curricula is one clear approach". Although students and healthcare professionals received training in infection, the entire healthcare workforce and pharmacists in particular needed to have "sufficient knowledge" about the application of genomics to infection control and management, the report said. |
Antibiotic resistance poses ‘apocalyptic' threat"Antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat," Professor Davies said. "If we don't act now, any one of us could go into hospital in 20 years for minor surgery and die because of an ordinary infection that can't be treated by antibiotics."
Professor Davies called for more innovation in the development of antibiotics because there had been a "discovery void" in the past 20 years, meaning diseases – including new strains of pneumonia-causing klebsiella and the infections TB and gonorrhoea – had evolved faster than the drugs to treat them.
Royal Pharmaceutical Society expert in antibiotics Hayley Wickens agreed that there needed to be "joined-up action globally", which would involve the pharmaceutical industry developing new antibiotics.
"This is our last chance to make a difference or we risk a return to the pre-antibiotic era where infections we can currently treat become easily incurable," she said.
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) said antimicrobial resistance was "a serious and growing problem". And, although pharmaceutical companies and the public sector were working on a programme to tackle antimicrobial resistance, more action was needed.
The Department of Health would soon publish its five-year UK Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy and Action Plan, which would include ways of increasing surveillance, encouraging the development of new antibiotics and championing the responsible use of antibiotics, Professor Davies said.
The first volume of Professor Davies' 2011 report was published in November last year.
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