World Health Day (7 April): Antimicrobial resistance: no action today, no cure tomorrow

World Health Day – 7 April 2011
With emerging drug resistance gradually making existing array of curative drugs ineffective, treatment options for a range of health conditions is getting severely limited. This year, the World Health Day (7th April) has put this theme in the bull's eye: Combat drug resistance - no action today, no cure tomorrow. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), antimicrobial resistance is not a new problem but one that is becoming more dangerous; urgent and consolidated efforts are needed to avoid regressing to the pre-antibiotic era.

On World Health Day 2011, WHO will introduce a six-point policy package to combat the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

According to the WHO, we live in an era in which we depend on antibiotics, and other antimicrobial medicines to treat conditions that decades ago, or even a few years ago in the case of HIV/AIDS, would have proved fatal. When antimicrobial resistance - also known as drug resistance - occurs, it renders these medicines ineffective. For World Health Day 2011, WHO will be calling for intensified global commitment to safeguard these medicines for future generations. Antimicrobial resistance - the theme of World Health Day 2011 - and its global spread, threatens the continued effectiveness of many medicines used today to treat infectious diseases.

For World Health Day 2011, WHO will call on governments and stakeholders to implement the policies and practices needed to prevent and counter the emergence of highly resistant microorganisms.


CNS 


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Citizen News Service (CNS), India/Thailand 
Elites TV News, USA
States Times, USA 
Wikio.com, UK