Untangling antimicrobial resistance

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) possibly represents the greatest global crisis in public health today, and yet - as we shall try to illustrate - the phenomenon stretches well beyond the health domain. AMR is closely associated with some of the human disruptions enshrining globalization and the unfolding era of Anthropocene, being reproduced and transmitted as vectors of disease: the environmental crisis and climate change. Already, AMR is estimated to lead to 5 million deaths every year1 and will claim 50 million lives in the coming decades. If “COVID-19 has revealed and exacerbated fundamental weaknesses in pandemic preparedness and response at both national and global levels [...] These same weaknesses are also true of the global response to AMR”, declared the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus, in early 2022.
In fact, the risks entailed in AMR make the COVID-19 pandemic a rather amenable crisis
in comparison.