Tomorrow, the 7th April is World Health Day commemorating the founding of the World Health Organisation (WHO). This year the theme is antimicrobial resistance.

WORLD HEALTH DAY 2011 BROCHURE

“Most of us live longer and healthier lives today, partly because powerful and effective medicines – known as anti- microbials – are available to treat infectious diseases. Until the discovery and availability of antimicrobials in the 1940s, people died needlessly from infectious diseases.Today, none of us can imagine living in a world without antimicrobials.

We are now on the brink of losing this precious arsenal of medicines.The use and misuse of antimicrobials in human medicine and animal husbandry over the past 70 years have increased the number and types of microorganisms resistant to these medicines, causing deaths, greater suffering and disability, and higher health-care costs.

If this phenomenon continues unchecked, many infectious diseases risk becoming uncontrollable and could derail progress made towards reaching the health related United Nations Millennium Development Goals for 2015. Furthermore, the growth of global trade and travel allows resistant organisms to spread worldwide within hours.”

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