The development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a natural process that has occurred long before the introduction of antibiotics to healthcare. However the overreliance and misuse of antibiotics has significantly accelerated the development and spread of bacteria resistance. AMR is now one of the biggest crises facing public health globally, estimated to cost $100 trillion and cause 10 million deaths annually by 2050. Resistance to antibiotics not only cripples the ability to fight common infections but also undermines the ability to perform several life-saving procedures which carry a high infection risk such as chemotherapy and organ transplantation. AMR is particularly problematic in some Gram-negative bacterial pathogens which are resistant to commonly available antibiotics and for which therapeutic options are severely limited, for example healthcare-associated Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) and Enterobacteriaceae. At the EU/EEA level, the European Centre for Disease Control reported that 30.8% of P. aeruginosa infections were resistant to at least one antibiotic treatment and more than half (58.2%) of Escherichia coli (E. coli) infections were resistant to at least one of the antibiotics usually administered for treatment…
Authors: Ethel G. A. Owusu, Elnaz Yaghini, Imad Naasani, Ivan P. Parkin, Elaine Allan and Alexander J. MacRobert