Читать книгу Contemporary Health Studies - Louise Warwick-Booth - Страница 74

The WHO (2019a) lists antimicrobial resistance as one of the top ten global health threats. This is the ability of bacteria, bugs and parasites to resist antibiotic medicines, commonly used to treat infections such as pneumonia and tuberculosis. Furthermore, surgical procedures will be compromised without the availability of effective antibiotics. Since 1930 these drugs have transformed how medicine treats diseases, protected the sick (e.g. cancer patients with weakened immune systems from chemotherapy) and supported global food production (Kirchhelle and Roberts, 2019). However, economic interests (profit-making) have meant that the development of new antibiotics has failed because investment has focused upon more lucrative options (medication that needs to be taken for longer). However, bacteria have become more resistant to existing drugs, compounded by the overuse of antimicrobials in people, but also in animals, especially those used for food production, as well as in the environment (WHO, 2019f).

Some governments have created action plans which include public-health awareness campaigns, attempting to educate communities about correct usage. Haenssgen (2019) suggests that such approaches assume that knowledge will lead to behaviour change but that the effectiveness of health education needs evaluation. Mohammed and Millard (2019) highlight an alternative approach where scientists are trying to use viruses as an alternative to antibiotics in the treatment of bacterial infections. WHO has also called upon Big Pharma to invest more money in the development of new antibiotics. There has been one positive development of a drug called pretomanid, now approved for use with patients who have drug resistant TB, developed by a not-for-profit organization called TB Alliance (Boseley, 2020a). Kirchhelle and Roberts (2019) point out that the market is broken, as even the injection of £520 million of public money since 2016 has not stopped industry departments responsible for antibiotic development from shrinking. Instead they call for a publicly owned approach, which will be better able to respond to need rather than prioritizing commercial interests.