Antimicrobial Resistance: Addressing a Global Threat to Humanity

In a systematic review of 109 studies reporting bloodstream infections in hospitalized patients from LMICs, several WHO critical and high priority pathogens were associated with increased mortality, length of hospital stay and admission to intensive care units (ICU), and cost [12]. To gain a better understanding of the relationship between treatment duration and prevalence of colonization with antimicrobial resistant bacteria in hospitalized patients, Yin Mo and co-workers applied a model to assess how changing duration of antibiotic treatment would affect the risk of resistance colonization at both individual and population levels [14]. The authors concluded that shortening antibiotic treatment duration may increase or decrease colonization by resistant bacteria, dependent upon individual and combined bacterial and antibiotic characteristics [14]. Using a novel mathematical modeling approach, David Smith and colleagues reported that surges in COVID-19 cases fostered conditions favorable for bacterial transmission, on average resulting in a 14% increase in colonization and a 10% increase in rates of AMR [15].