What you need to know about drug resistant infections: the invisible pandemic

Spread awareness, stop resistance – the theme of this year’s World Antimicrobial Awareness Week. Taking place between 18 and 24 November this annual event aims to increase awareness and best practice to prevent the spread of drug-resistant infections.

This year we hear from Rod Card, APHA Head of the United Kingdom’s Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Reference Centre for antimicrobial resistance. An expert in his field, Rod describes how APHA is working at the core of this global issue, sharing our world-renowned knowledge and expertise internationally.

The COVID-19 global pandemic has changed the way many of us work. Home working and meetings via video link are now commonplace. Some jobs, however, cannot be done from home including laboratory-based roles, such as those undertaking surveillance and diagnosis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria.

During the COVID-19 pandemic our AMR Reference centre has continued to support global efforts to tackle the threat of AMR and provide capacity development support to our partners.

AMR was recently highlighted as an invisible pandemic and a profound threat to global health security, food safety, and food security at a High-Level Dialogue organised by the General Assembly of the United Nations.