ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE (AMR).

What is AMR? This is a condition when microbes, which are exposed to high-grade antibiotics, become used to them over time and become resistant to them.

What is meant by 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.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when microbes evolve mechanisms that protect them from the effects of antimicrobials (drugs used to treat infections). All classes of microbes can evolve resistance where the drugs are no longer effective. Fungi evolve antifungal resistance, viruses evolve antiviral resistance,’

protozoa evolve antiprotozoal resistance, and bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance. Together all of these come under the umbrella of antimicrobial resistance. Microbes resistant to multiple antimicrobials are called multidrug resistant (MDR) and are sometimes referred to as superbugs.[3] Although antimicrobial resistance is a naturally occurring process, it is often the result of improper usage of the drugs and management of the infections