The infectious threat of antibiotic resistance by Professor Dame Sally Davies
A WOMAN who survived a brutal car accident was fighting for her life years later after suffering a series of infections that left doctors baffled.
Posing a threat to the effectiveness of commonly used antibiotics and other antimicrobial drugs, AMR has become a growing public- which was published by The Lancet in 2022 - estimated that resistance to antimicrobial drugs had caused 1.27million deaths in 2019, and that antimicrobial-resistant infections played a role in a further 4.95million deaths.
MP Maggie Throup called AMR "a tremendous threat", saying it's "critical that we don’t miss opportunities to slow the progress of resistance". Her nose, jaw and cheekbone were broken and surgeons had to remove her eye, as she’d completely lost her vision in it.“I couldn’t walk for a while because of the broken pelvic bone and the internal injuries were really, really painful," she said.
“I got into my car and I pulled down the rear-view mirror and there was pus coming out of my face and I thought, 'What is going on?'," she said.Surgeons carried out a debridement, which involved cleaning the prosthetic, and reconstructed skin that had been eaten away by the infection.“The skin was red and inflamed and there was more pus coming out and it was not looking good at all,” Vanessa said.
Not only that, “giving me an antibiotic that the bacteria had already developed a resistance to was making that bacteria evolve faster”, Vanessa explained. This time, they didn’t use a prosthetic to reconstruct her cheekbone, but used the bone left in her face. But at least some things felt within Vanessa’s control, like sticking to a strict schedule with taking her antibiotics, making sure her home was sterilised, sanitising her hands and washing them after touching objects in public.
Thankfully, the new antibiotics and Vanessa’s efforts paid off and she was able to overcome the infection.By that time, it had been almost 10 years since her car accident, but she felt “bothered” by the fact that antibiotic resistance didn’t seem to be common knowledge. Communication between a prescriber and a patient is “a huge part” of safe and informed antibiotic use, she said.
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