Antibiotic prescribing around the time of surgery and in aged care isn’t always appropriate, a new report shows. Here’s what else we learned.
Articles on Antimicrobial overuse
Displaying all articles
We asked 7 global experts in microbiology and biochemistry if we are headed towards a future with no antimicrobial agents.
Quaternary ammonium compounds, also known as QACs or quats, are commonly used antimicrobials also found in many household products. Soap and water may be a safer bet when cleaning surfaces.
Antimicrobial resistance is a growing threat. Here’s how resistant genes sneak into human guts via wastewater, food and other routes.
Nearly three-quarters of all patients in the study were taking at least one antibiotic. This is high and could indicate overuse.
Antimicrobial resistance is a public health and economic disaster waiting to happen. If we do not address this threat, by 2050 more people will die from drug-resistant infections than from cancer.
Superbugs used to pose the greatest risk to people with compromised immune systems and those who had surgery. But their sexual transmission means antibiotic resistance can spread much more widely.
Unless we do something about about antibiotic pollution in the world’s waterways, the next trip you take to the coast for a seafood dinner just might be your last.
The US Centers for Disease Control has reported a woman in her 70s has died of overwhelming sepsis caused by a bacterium that was resistant to all available antibiotics.
Like the essential medicines list which sets out the drugs each country should have at affordable prices, an essential diagnostics list would detail diagnostic tests for those who need them.
Top contributors
-
Professor of Biocchemistry and Biomedical Sciences, McMaster University
-
Assistant Professor, Director of Point-of-Care Testing and Associate Director of Chemical Pathology, University of Michigan
-
Associate Professor Johns Hopkins University, and Director of the Hopkins Bayview Medical Center Clinical Laboratories, Johns Hopkins University
-
Professor at ANU Medical School; Senior Staff Specialist Infectious Diseases; General Physician, Australian National University
-
Country project Director, of the USAID/Medicines Technologies and Pharmaceutical Services Program (MTaPS)
-
Honorary Professorial Fellow, medical microbiology, The University of Melbourne
-
PhD student in Environmental Engineering, McGill University
-
Consultant Microbiologist, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland and Professor and Head of Department, Clinical Microbiology, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences
-
Pesquisadora de Pós-doutorado, Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo da Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV/EAESP)
-
Associate Professor of environmental engineering, Civil Engineering Department, McGill University
-
Professor, The University of Queensland
-
Dean of the College of Science, Professor of Biochemistry, Rochester Institute of Technology
-
Catedrático de Microbiología. Miembro de la Sociedad Española de Microbiología, Universidad de Salamanca
-
Assistant Professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Michigan State University
-
Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universitas Andalas