- Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General WHO
World Antibiotic Awareness Week starts today and aims to increase the awareness of global antibiotic resistance and to encourage best practice among the general public, health workers and policy makers to avoid the further emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is a major threat to global health; it happens when bacteria change and become resistant to the antibiotics used to treat the infections they cause. Over-use and misuse of antibiotics increase the development of resistant bacteria.
The theme of the awareness week is "Antibiotics: Handle with care" and it aims to highlight the fact that antibiotics are a precious resource and must be preserved and used only when necessary. You can find out more about antibiotic resistance at http://www.who.int/topics/drug_resistance/en/
Other useful resources
- 'A Strategy for the Control of Antimicrobial Resistance in Ireland', a report by the Scientific Advisory Committee of the National Disease Surveillance Centre can be accessed here.
- Guidelines for antimicrobial prescribing for primary care in Ireland can be found at http://www.antibioticprescribing.ie.
- The 'Journal of Global Antimicrobial Resistance' is a quarterly journal that focuses on the global spread of antibiotic resistant microbes. RCSI Library subscribes to the journal; access it via our ejournal portal (RCSI staff and students only).
- A much cited article on antibiotic resistance is 'Origins and Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance' (2010) by Davies, Julia and Davies, Dorothy which is available through PubMed at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2937522/
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