Antimicrobial Resistance: a growing global threat that concerns everyone
Every year, from 18 to 24 November, the world marks World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week (WAAW). The 2025 theme, “Act Now: Protect Our Present, Secure Our Future,” reminds us that AMR is not a distant problem — it is a present, accelerating threat that undermines modern medicine and public health.
AMR occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites evolve to resist medicines designed to kill them. When antimicrobials lose effectiveness, infections become harder to treat, illnesses last longer, and the risk of complications and death rises.
What used to be routine — a simple surgery, a urinary tract infection, or pneumonia — can suddenly become dangerous.
And among the infections most connected to AMR are healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), which often involve highly resistant bacteria and place patients at significant risk.
A Silent but Growing Crisis — and the Key Role of HAIs
According to global estimates, AMR is associated with nearly 5 million deaths every year, with at least 1.3 million deaths directly caused by resistant infections.
A substantial portion of the most severe resistant infections occur in healthcare settings, where HAIs allow resistant organisms to spread more easily among vulnerable patients.
Common HAI pathogens — such as MRSA, ESBL-producing Enterobacterales, and carbapenem-resistant organisms — are among the biggest contributors to global AMR burden.
The crisis continues to grow due to:
- Overuse and misuse of antibiotics
- Inadequate infection prevention in healthcare facilities (leading to HAIs)
- Limited access to clean water and sanitation
- Insufficient surveillance systems
- Slow development of new antimicrobial medicines
HAIs are a major driver of antibiotic use in hospitals — and reducing HAIs is one of the most effective ways to slow AMR.
Why AMR Matters to the General Public — and Why HAIs Matter to Everyone
Antibiotics are a shared resource — and like any shared resource, they must be protected.
AMR threatens:
1. Everyday medical care
Procedures that rely on antibiotics become riskier, especially when HAIs involve resistant bacteria that are harder to treat.
2. Vulnerable groups
Infants, the elderly, and immunocompromised patients face increased danger if they acquire a resistant HAI.
3. Community health
Resistant bacteria originating in hospitals can spread into households, workplaces and communities.
Preventing HAIs is essential to stopping this spread.
Infections Can Be Prevented — and Prevention Slows AMR
Stopping infections before they occur reduces the need for antibiotics, and therefore slows the development of resistance. This is especially true for healthcare-associated infections, which require large amounts of antibiotics and often involve resistant pathogens.
WHO recommends:
✔ Good hand hygiene
Effective hand hygiene is one of the most powerful tools to prevent HAIs, reducing them by up to 70% in some settings.
This directly decreases antibiotic use.
✔ Respiratory and environmental hygiene
Proper environmental disinfection helps prevent the spread of resistant pathogens responsible for many HAIs.
✔ Safe food handling
Prevents gastrointestinal infections that often lead to unnecessary antibiotic consumption.
✔ Vaccination
Vaccines reduce respiratory and gastrointestinal infections, indirectly preventing antibiotic use and lowering AMR pressure.
Responsible Antibiotic Use Saves Lives
For the public, responsible antibiotic use means:
- Never taking antibiotics without a prescription
- Never sharing or reusing leftover antibiotics
- Completing the full course of treatment
- Avoiding antibiotics for viral illnesses (colds, flu, most sore throats)
- Trusting healthcare professionals’ decisions on antibiotic necessity
Every unnecessary dose increases resistance — and increases the risk that infections (including HAIs) become untreatable.
WAAW 2025: A Call to Collective Action
The theme of World AMR Awareness Week 2025 highlights the need for shared responsibility:
“Act Now: Protect Our Present, Secure Our Future.”
Everyone has a role to play:
- Communities — by practicing good hygiene
- Patients — by using antibiotics responsibly
- Healthcare workers— by reducing inappropriate antibiotic use and preventing HAIs
- Policymakers — by strengthening national AMR and HAI-prevention programs
- Families — by protecting vulnerable members
AMR is not just a medical problem — and HAIs are not just a hospital problem.
Together, they represent a global public health challenge that affects everyone.
➡ Antimicrobial resistance is one of the defining health challenges of this century.
Healthcare-associated infections amplify this crisis by enabling resistant bacteria to spread in places where patients should feel safest.
Yet the world still has the opportunity to act.
By reducing HAIs, using antibiotics correctly, strengthening infection prevention and promoting awareness, we can protect the effectiveness of life-saving treatments for future generations.
Preventing infections today — especially HAIs — protects the antibiotics that save lives tomorrow.
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