World Health Day 2011
6 April 2011 | Geneva -
Drug resistance is becoming more severe and many infections
are no longer easily cured, leading to prolonged and expensive treatment
and greater risk of death, warns WHO on World Health Day. Under the
theme "Combat Drug Resistance", WHO calls for urgent and concerted
action by governments, health professionals, industry and civil society
and patients to slow down the spread of drug resistance, limit its
impact today and preserve medical advances for future generations.
On the brink of losing miracle cures
“The message on this World Health Day is loud and clear. The
world is on the brink of losing these miracle cures,” said WHO
Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. “In the absence of urgent corrective
and protective actions, the world is heading towards a post-antibiotic
era, in which many common infections will no longer have a cure and,
once again, kill unabated.”
The discovery and use of antimicrobial drugs to treat diseases
such as leprosy, tuberculosis, gonorrhea and syphilis changed the
course of medical and human history. Now, those discoveries and the
generations of drugs that followed them are at risk, as high levels of
drug resistance threaten their effectiveness.
Drug resistance is a natural biological phenomenon, through
which microorganisms acquire resistance to the drugs meant to kill them.
With each new generation, the microorganism carrying the resistant gene
becomes ever more dominant until the drug is completely ineffective.
Inappropriate use of infection-fighting drugs (underuse, overuse or
misuse) causes resistance to emerge faster.
Resistance detected in a number of diseases
Last year, at least 440 000 new cases of multidrug
resistant-tuberculosis were detected and extensively drug-resistant
tuberculosis has been reported in 69 countries to date. The malaria
parasite is acquiring resistance to even the latest generation of
medicines, and resistant strains causing gonorrhea and shigella are
limiting treatment options. Serious infections acquired in hospitals can
become fatal because they are so difficult to treat and drug-resistant
strains of microorganism are spread from one geographical location to
another in today's interconnected and globalized world. Resistance is
also emerging to the antiretroviral medicines used to treat people
living with HIV.
Governments and partners need to work closely with industry to
encourage greater investment in research and development of new
diagnostics that can help improve decision making as well as drugs to
replace those that are being lost to resistance. Today, less than five
per cent of products in the research and development pipeline are
antibiotic drugs. Innovative incentive schemes are needed to stimulate
industry to research and develop new antimicrobial drugs for the future.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2011/whd_20110406/en/
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