Introduction

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) happens when bacteria, parasites, viruses, and fungi develop a resistance to the antimicrobial medications used to treat the infections they cause. AMR causes antimicrobials medications’ efficacy to decline, making patient treatment challenging, expensive, or even impossible (WHO Jordan, 2018). Resistance to antibiotics takes over 1.27 million lives annually (Midega, 2022) and the issue is expected to kill over 10 million people and cause an economic loss of up to $100 million by 2050 if nothing is done (European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), 2022; Neill, 2014; World Health Organization, 2022))

To tackle AMR, a coordinated AMR response is necessary; to create a shared vision, level of accountability among stakeholders through developing and fortifying global frameworks for a multi-sectoral AMR response and making sure that global coordination mechanisms are efficient (World Health Organization, 2022).

Key players to fight Antimicrobial resistance

1. Prescribers /physicians

All prescribers should have access to the most recent evidence-based prescription guidelines, and local policies could be used and have access to and adhere to the most recent therapeutic guidelines(Grujicic-alatriste & Cameron, 2015).

2. Pharmacists

Pharmacists are the most knowledgeable and approachable medicine experts. To prevent AMR, they dispense and encourage the public about rational medicine use and collaborate with clinical teams to ensure the best possible and responsible use of antibiotics and other medication (Sakeena et al., 2018; Wei et al., 2015).

3. Nurses

To combat AMR, nurses assist in the reduction of unnecessary and inappropriate antibiotic use, promoting and practicing good infection control, and AMR education to patients and the general public and what people can do to stop it from getting worse (Australian Government Department of Health, 2017).

4. Microbiologists/Laboratorians

Clinical microbiologists and microbiology laboratories make a substantial contribution to fight AMR by providing alarm and surveillance systems, increased culture and susceptibility reports, assistance during the pre-analytic phase, and rapid diagnostic test availability (Morency-Potvin et al., 2017).

5. Veterinarians and farmers

Antibiotics use in aquaculture and animal production are the main causes of antimicrobial resistance in agriculture that spreads to humans (Grace, 2015). Reducing the use of antibiotics in animals raised for food, substituting them when practical, and reevaluating the livestock production system will be a win against AMR.

6. Health facilities

Health facilities has an incredible role to avoid microbial contamination and fight against antimicrobial resistance by encouraging good hand hygiene habits, accurate infection diagnosis and treatment, rational antimicrobial use, monitoring of antibiotic resistance and use, improving the supply chain for and quality of antimicrobials, good microbiology practices, and antibiotic resistance surveillance (Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2018; European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), 2022; Uchil et al., 2014).

7. Regulatory bodies

These institutions participate in registrations, importing and exporting medicine, therein quality of pharmaceutical products especially antimicrobials and avoiding counterfeit medicines. Regulators must advice on how to prioritize and allocate resources for risk management and assessment procedures for both new and existing drug applications (Group et al., n.d.). They have also to restrict dispensing of antimicrobial without prescriptions in community pharmacies (WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2014).

8. Governments

The performance and safety of the healthcare system have been determined to depend critically on effective governance(Willmington et al., 2022). AMR reduced by the government through creating action plans, investing in the research of new classes of antibiotics and gathering data on scope and trends of resistance and taking part in international networks for data sharing and trend monitoring to inform global strategies(Morrison & Zembower, 2020), and intervene in educational activities aimed at eradicating unwarranted antibiotic use (Jansen & Anderson, 2018).

9. Researchers and Pharmaceutical industries

Researches and pharmaceutical industries own big part to play in the battle not limited to the development of new antimicrobials but also the analysis of costs taking into account all resources impacted by disease or intervention. It is own responsibilities of pharmaceutical industries to produce good quality medicines to improve antimicrobial effectiveness.

10. Patients

Patients exhibit a greater function to combat AMR by adhering the instructions regarding the medicine administration, given dose, complete regimen as prescribed. And should be aware about economic impact in terms of illness and mortality, and increased cost of treating a resistant organism (McGowan, 2001).

11. Individuals in community 

Every person either patient or health individual has role to perform to reduce incidence of antimicrobial resistance, being AMR-Smart by keeping yourself healthy, be an educator by raising awareness of antimicrobial resistance and be a vaccine hero by being vaccinated and urge your family and friends to do the same for all diseases for which there is a vaccine.

Conclusion and Recommendation

Microbial resistance is a problem for world health. It takes the entire healthcare system, modern agriculture, farming, and community members to win this war. An educated, effective, motivated, suitably skilled, and well-managed health workforce is necessary for health systems to operate efficiently and respond to health concerns like AMR. Fighting antibiotic resistance requires a multidisciplinary, cooperative, regulatory strategy.

References:

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