Estimating the cost of antibiotic resistance to economies and health-care systems is fraught with difficulty, but new research says Australia will be hit harder than we think.
Illustration of Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria.
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The African continent has the highest burden of gonorrhoea worldwide. In South Africa alone, it’s estimated that more than 2 million new cases occur annually.
As antimicrobial resistance increases, the options for treating serious infections dwindle. Doctors need reliable information about which treatments to try out.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria (coloured yellow) enmeshed within a human white blood cell (coloured red). MRSA is a major cause of hospital-associated infections.
(NIAID)
Antimicrobial resistance is a public health and economic disaster waiting to happen. If we do not address this threat, by 2050 more people will die from drug-resistant infections than from cancer.
Hand sanitisers can contain ingredients that may cause antimicrobial resistance.
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Antibiotics aren’t a one-size-fits-all treatment – the one you had last time might not work on the infection you have at the moment. So how do doctors determine which one is likely to work?
Leafcutter ants, Komodo dragons and even your nose are potential sources of new antimicrobial compounds.
Rates of resistance to the bacteria commonly known as golden staph are at least double in remote Indigenous communities what they are in Australia’s major cities.
Lucy Hughes Jones/AAP
Asha Bowen, Telethon Kids Institute and Steven Tong, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity
Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest health challenges of the modern day. It’s especially prevalent, and must be acted on, in Australia’s remote Indigenous communities.
More stringent use of antibiotics is needed to curb antibiotic resistance. But how can we achieve this?
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Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest health challenges we face today. But making a few small changes to the way antibiotics are prescribed could make a big difference in Australia.
A.G. Sanders with penicillin extraction equipment.
Image reproduced with permission of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford
A new report estimates that by 2050, 40 per cent of all infections will be resistant to antimicrobial treatment. This will directly cause 13,700 previously preventable deaths.
The lack diagnostic laboratory systems exacerbates antibiotic resistance in Africa.
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Healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to laboratory diagnostics and often have to guess which antibiotics to use for presumed infections.
Our research showed that inflight magazines offered travellers health advice on everything from dehydration to swollen ankles, but hardly anything on avoiding catching and spreading infectious diseases.
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Washing hands and coughing into your elbow can help limit the spread of infectious diseases on planes and around the globe. So why don’t passengers read about this in their inflight magazines?
Even the tidiest space has some dust. Researchers are investigating just what these indoor particles are made of and their possible implications for human health.
Consultant Microbiologist, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland and Professor and Head of Department, Clinical Microbiology, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences