Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is defined as the resistance of a micro-organism to an antimicrobial medicine to which it was originally sensitive.

Organisms that are able to withstand attack by antimicrobial medicines, such as antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals and antimalarials, include bacteria, fungi, viruses and some parasites.

Antibiotics have significantly reduced deaths from common infections. For example, fewer than one in 100 young and otherwise healthy people now die from community-acquired pneumonia and skin infections in comparison to the 10 in every 100 people who died before antibiotics were discovered.

If effective antibiotics are not available, society risks returning to the days when those infections now regarded as trivial become fatal again.

An infected cut could be life-threatening and an illness like pneumonia would again become a mass killer.

Key facts

• Several commonly found bacteria that can cause life-threatening infections are now resistant to ‘last resort’ antibiotics
• If drug resistant infections are not tackled now, they could kill an extra 10 million people worldwide each year by 2050
• Cancer chemotherapy, transplants and surgery all rely on the availability of effective antibiotics
• Preventing infections and controlling the spread of micro-organisms is essential for tackling antimicrobial resistance
• NICE has published national antimicrobial prescribing guidelines to support appropriate prescribing and advice for patients
• Cleaning hands properly is the single most important thing anyone can do to help reduce the spread of infections
• Community pharmacists and their teams are well placed to help support the appropriate use of antibiotics
• In 2018, 74 per cent of all antibiotics prescribed in England were issued in general practice.