Antibiotic Resistance: A Serious Global Public Health Threat

Abstract

The global public health concern for the antibiotic resistance is not a future issue; it is happening right now in every region of the world and has the potential to affect anyone, of any age, in any part of the world. New WHO reports, with data from 114 countries provides the comprehensive picture about the situation. Antibiotics have been extensively misused in both humans and food-producing animals in ways that favour the selection and spread of resistant bacteria. Without a global policy on usage of antibiotics, the world is headed for post-antibiotic era, which is deadly even with minor infection or injury. In his Nobel Prize speech in 1945, Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, warned that bacteria could become resistant to these remarkable drugs.