{"id":6843,"date":"2019-11-27T09:14:19","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T06:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6843"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:43","slug":"antibiotics-interplay-between-humans-animals-and-the-environment-is-key","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/11\/27\/antibiotics-interplay-between-humans-animals-and-the-environment-is-key\/","title":{"rendered":"Antibiotics: Interplay Between Humans, Animals And The Environment Is Key"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By Sabiha Essack<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mmbr.asm.org\/content\/74\/3\/417\">Antibiotics<\/a>&nbsp;have\nrevolutionised health care since their introduction into clinical practice in\nthe 1930s and 1940s by dramatically decreasing the morbidity and mortality\nassociated with bacterial infections in humans and animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Antibiotics have&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/24252483\">saved innumerable lives<\/a>.\nThey have also made possible major surgery, organ transplantation, treatment of\npre-term babies, and cancer chemotherapy. They have advanced food security and\nfood safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But infectious diseases remain the leading cause of death in\nthe world. This is particularly in lower and middle income countries.\nIncreasingly this is due to a rise in antibiotic resistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Antibiotic resistance has been recognised as a threat to\nthe&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/reports.weforum.org\/global-risks-2013\/\">world economy<\/a>.\nIt affects developed and developing countries, which makes it a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/docs\/default-source\/documents\/no-time-to-wait-securing-the-future-from-drug-resistant-infections-en.pdf?sfvrsn=5b424d7_6\">public\nhealth challenge<\/a>&nbsp;with extensive health, economic and societal\nimplications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Antibiotic resistance is a direct consequence of the\nselection pressure from warranted and indiscriminate antibiotic use in human,\nanimal and environmental health. Understanding how this happens is key to\ncontaining the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>How it happens<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/drugresistance\/documents\/surveillancereport\/en\/\">Resistance<\/a>&nbsp;develops\nwhen bacteria no longer respond to antibiotics that were previously effective\nand cured infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This means that treatments no longer work for infections\nthat are caused by microorganisms that have developed&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/laninf\/article\/PIIS1473-3099(13)70318-9\/fulltext\">resistance<\/a>.\nThis is the case for both humans and animals. The increase in infections like\nthis raises the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/drugresistance\/documents\/surveillancereport\/en\/\">risk\nof diseases spreading<\/a>&nbsp;in communities as well as through flocks or herds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Other outcomes are that illnesses last longer, mortality rates are higher and the cost of treatment goes up because alternatives need to be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/antibiotics-interplay-between-humans-animals-and-the-environment-is-key-127339\">Read more&#8230; <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Sabiha Essack Antibiotics&nbsp;have revolutionised health care since their introduction into clinical practice in the 1930s and 1940s by dramatically decreasing the morbidity and mortality associated with bacterial infections in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}