Antibiotics and bacterial resistance: Preventing a respiratory viral infection means saving an antibiotic!

Controlling antibiotic resistance depends first and foremost on preventing infections, particularly respiratory viral infections. These infections are often treated with antibiotics, either because of difficulties in distinguishing them from bacterial respiratory infections or due to concerns about complications from secondary bacterial infections. Thus, every viral infection prevented represents one less temptation to prescribe antibiotics. The issue of antibiotic resistance is now addressed through a comprehensive “One Health” approach that encompasses human health, animal health, and the environment. In 2019, the slow decline in antibiotic consumption in human health care, which began in 2015, was documented across all three sectors of care. And a decline appears to be confirmed for enterobacterial resistance to third-generation cephalosporins. In animal health, the decline, which began in the mid-2000s, has slowed since 2015. Regarding the environment, data on ecosystem contamination are accumulating, but the impact on human and animal health remains to be established. The COVID-19 health crisis has led the public to adopt hygiene and prevention measures that appear to be becoming established over the long term. It has highlighted the usefulness of wastewater surveillance as an indicator of the spread of infectious agents excreted in urine or feces within the population. The European Antibiotic Awareness Day on November 18, 2020, is part of World Antimicrobial Awareness Week and mobilizes all stakeholders: citizens, patients, human and animal health professionals, environmental experts, and decision-makers. To this end, since 2014, three national agencies—Santé publique France, the National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety (ANSM), and the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES)—as well as the National Health Insurance, their respective ministries, and, for the first time in 2020, the High Authority for Health (HAS)—have joined forces with their partners to jointly present key figures on antibiotic consumption and resistance from a global health (“One Health”) perspective. Since 2018, the document has also addressed the role of the environment, in collaboration with the Inserm hospital-university team in Limoges and the Ministry for Ecological Transition.

Author(s): Maugat Sylvie, Berger-carbonne Anne

Publishing year: 2020

Pages: 20 p.

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