One in five deaths in children below five is caused by resistance of bacteria and viruses to medicines, the Ministry of Health has warned.
Resistance to antimicrobials has been rated as the leading cause of death globally, higher than HIV/AIDs or malaria.
Antimicrobials are medicines that destroy disease-causing microbes, also called pathogens, such as certain bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi.
The most familiar and important antimicrobials are antibiotics, which treat bacterial infections.
Antimicrobial resistance occurs when disease-causing organisms undergo adaptive changes that enable them to withstand antimicrobials.
“In recent times, overuse and misuse of antimicrobials have caused avoidable AMR emergence and spread,” the ministry warns.
“As a result, antimicrobial agents are rapidly losing their effectiveness in both developing and developed countries,” it adds.
Kenya on Friday commemorated the World Antimicrobial Awareness Week under the theme ‘Preventing antimicrobial resistance together’.
This is part of ongoing efforts to create awareness on AMR and encourage best practices on the use of antimicrobial agents among the general public, health workers, agriculturalists, environmentalists and policy makers.
WAAW is a global campaign that is celebrated annually.
It aims to improve awareness and understanding of AMR and encourage best practices among the public, health stakeholders and policymakers, who all play a critical role in reducing the further emergence and spread of AMR.
The Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance report 2022 estimates that at least 1.27 million deaths per year are directly attributable to AMR, with the highest rates of AMR burden being in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Experts in the recent past have raised alarm that treatment of diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDs is at risk from the threat of resistance to antibiotics unless an urgent action is taken to reverse the trend.
Without effective antimicrobials, the success of modern medicine in treating infections, including during major surgery and cancer chemotherapy, would be at increased risk.
The World Health Organsiation warns that the cost of AMR to the economy is significant.
In addition to death and disability, prolonged illness results in longer hospital stays, the need for more expensive medicines and financial challenges for those impacted.
“A global action plan to tackle the growing problem of resistance to antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines was endorsed at the sixty-eighth World Health Assembly in May 2015,” WHO states.
One of the key objectives of the plan is to improve awareness and understanding of AMR through effective communication, education and training.