ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE (Syllabus: GS Paper 2 - Health)

Context: The number of reported antimicrobial resistance (AMR) cases spiked more than 4.5 times from 25,833 in 2017 to 119,686 till December last year, a report by the health ministry showed. 

• The data has been generated by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) as a part of an annual AMR surveillance exercise.

Key Points

• AMR is recognized by the World Health Organization as one of the top 10 global public health threats.
• Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death. 
• E. coli was the most common bacteria, accounting for 33% of AMR cases in 2022.
• The National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (NAP-AMR) 2017 has assigned coordinated tasks to multiple government agencies involving health, education, environment, and livestock to change prescription practices and consumer behaviour and to scale up infection control and antimicrobial surveillance.