In 2050 people will die not from cancer or diabetes but from bacterial drug resistance, so-called antimicrobial resistance, which makes it all the more urgent today to accelerate our steps towards Single Health Care.

In an interview with the central news bulletin of “Thrace Net” and the journalist Artemis Kalaitzi, George Valiakos, Professor of Veterinary Microbiology at the University of Thessaly, among others, pointed out:

• Antimicrobial resistance refers to various bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi that develop resistance to drugs that were previously able to fight them.
• In this way a treatment becomes less effective or completely ineffective. The problem primarily concerns the resistance that bacteria develop to antibacterial drugs, the antibiotics that we all know.
• What causes microbial resistance? It is not something abnormal. It is something that develops naturally over time, as a defense mechanism of microbes against drugs.
• The development of microbial resistance (this category includes hospital-acquired infections) is accelerated when antibiotic drugs are overused or misused. When they are not used judiciously. And prudent use is put into practice when the right drug is used only at the time it is needed, at the right dose and for the right duration.
• Today, antimicrobial resistance is considered by the World Health Organization as a very serious threat to Public Health.
• Imagine that by 2050 it is estimated that antimicrobial resistance will cause more deaths than cancer and diabetes combined. While, hospitalization costs and declining productivity are thought to cause a global economic crisis similar to that of 2008.

However, in his interview, Mr Valiakos referred to the negative first place that Greece has in the issue of microbial resistance. As he pointed out to the TV station “Thraki Net”:

• In the European Union, it is estimated that 30,000-35,000 people die annually from infections linked to antibiotic resistance and the annual economic cost is estimated at around €1.5 billion.
• Antimicrobial resistance affects us all and affects us twice over.
• On the one hand, because we are all threatened by infection by resistant bacteria and by possible illness that cannot be treated with antibiotic drugs. And on the other hand because we can all take a very active role in tackling the problem.
• In Greece, it is estimated that we have 1,000 to 2,000 deaths per year due to microbial resistance, almost twice the European Union average.
• And this is explained by the fact that we are, together with Cyprus, the first countries in the consumption of antibiotics.
• And the fight against antimicrobial resistance is a fairly complex process.
• What everyone agrees on is that since these resistant bacteria can exist simultaneously in humans, in animals and even in the environment, we need to take a Single Health Care approach to the issue, i.e. to treat human, animal and environmental Health as One and make interventions in all three areas to reduce the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

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