In 1918, the world was swept by a terrifying novel influenza pandemic that killed about 50 million people.1 The primary cause of death, however, was not the influenza virus itself but the secondary bacterial pneumonia that so often followed. Antibiotics wouldn’t be discovered by Alexander Fleming until 1928, so physicians during the 1918 pandemic had nothing with which to treat bacterial pneumonia. Before antibiotics, people were at risk of dying from the same common bacterial infections we so often take for granted being able to treat today. When Fleming received his Nobel Prize for the discovery of penicillin, he warned that misuse of antibiotics could lead to resistant bacteria. True to that warning, bacteria, and now yeast, have developed ways to resist antimicrobial treatment. And if we don’t act quickly to prevent and contain antimicrobial resistance, we may see a time in which the inability to treat common infections will once again be our reality.
The World Health Organization lists antimicrobial resistance as one of the top 10 global public health threats.2 Regarded as serious a threat as climate change, antimicrobial resistance threatens to rob us of the antibiotics we rely upon for the treatment of infectious diseases, and of many of our modern medical advances. A review about antimicrobial resistance estimated that “globally, at least 700,000 people die each year of drug resistance from illnesses such as bacterial infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, or tuberculosis.”3 This same report warns that, without quick and strategic action, “this toll will exceed 10 million each year by 2050 and cost the world over 100 trillion USD in lost output.”3
Because of the role antibiotics play in the development of antimicrobial resistance, much of the conversation around containing resistance revolves around the stewardship and development of antibiotics. We need antimicrobials to treat infections and must therefore be judicious in our use of those antimicrobials. However, we have learned over time that the prevention and control of infectious diseases should never rely on 1 strategy alone. Instead, a combination of strategies enables us to most effectively prevent infections. To prevent the spread of antimicrobial resistance, we must address the horizontal transmission of antimicrobial-resistant organisms in addition to addressing antimicrobial stewardship. Antimicrobial resistance is worsening, but not solely because of the inappropriate use of antimicrobials. Resistance is spreading. Drug-resistant organisms and resistance mechanisms are spreading from person to person, primarily in health care settings, through lapses in basic infection prevention and control. To prevent this horizontal spread of antimicrobial resistance, we need infection preventionists (IPs) to lead in the fight against drug-resistant organisms.
Source: https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/view/antimicrobial-resistance-is-futile-without-ips-help
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