Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR): Nigeria’s Call to Action

Antimicrobials encompass a range of drugs including antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitics primarily used in killing or inhibiting harmful microorganisms in humans, animals, and even plants. These lifesaving drugs are once effective but now rapidly losing their power due to a growing global threat: Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).

Understanding AMR

AMR is an occurrence in which microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites evolve to acquire mechanisms of resistance that protect them from the effects of drugs designed to eliminate them. This occurrence leads to treatments becoming less effective, infections persisting longer, and the risk of disease spread, severe illness, disability, and death rises sharply.

Microorganisms can develop resistance through different strategies, which aid neutralizing, evading, or resisting the effects of antimicrobials designed to kill them. These mechanisms can be either natural or acquired through genetic changes or gene transfer between microorganisms. Common mechanisms of resistance include enzyme degradation, alteration of the target site, and biofilm formation, amongst many.

The Growing Burden of AMR

Antimicrobial resistance is not just a scientific concern but a global public health emergency and threat. AMR is responsible for an estimated 1 million global deaths each year between 1990 and 2021. Without coordinated global action, projections suggest that AMR could lead to an estimated 1.91 million deaths by 2050. According to a 2019 report from the World Health Organization, Africa recorded an estimated 1.05 million deaths linked with AMR, and about 250,000 deaths were directly attributed to AMR.

From a critical perspective, Nigeria stands at the frontline of the looming health crisis due to its high infectious disease burden and widespread misuse of antibiotics. A 2023 report by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) revealed that 60% of bacterial isolates tested showed resistance to commonly used antibiotics such as ampicillin and cotrimoxazole. These findings confirm that drug-resistant infections are no longer isolated events as they are now a everywhere.

Beyond the Hospital Walls

AMR extends beyond the clinical environment. It poses serious threat to the food security, the economy, and the future of healthcare. In agriculture, the misuse of antibiotics in livestock production for growth promotion equally contributes to environmental contamination and cross-species resistance. The effect of AMR in the economy result in growing cost of prolonged hospital admissions, additional tests, and ineffective treatments that adds a heavy burden to Nigeria’s already stretched health system.

Without innovative and urgent action, AMR could reverse decades of medical progress leading to untreatable infections in course of routine surgeries, childbirth, and cancer treatment.

World AMR Awareness Week 2025: “Act Now: Protect Our Present, Secure Our Future”

As the world commemorates World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week (WAAW), this year’s theme calls for urgent, united action across the world. Tackling AMR requires everyone, from healthcare professionals to farmers, pharmacists, policymakers, and the entire public, to take responsibility for preserving the effectiveness of antimicrobials. It is crucial to promote best practices among the entire public, who play critical roles in reducing the emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens

Practical Steps to Curb AMR

1. Use antibiotics responsibly: Only take antibiotics prescribed by a qualified health system and complete the prescription, even when symptoms improve.
2. Avoid self-medication: Never use leftover antibiotics or share prescriptions.
3. Promote hygiene and vaccination: Preventing infections reduces the need for antibiotics in the first place.
4. Regulate antibiotic use in agriculture: End the routine use of antibiotics for livestock growth promotion. Equally, farmers have to be sensitized on the risk and dangers they contribute each time unprescribed antibiotics is employed in livestock production.
5. Invest in diagnostics and research: Expand access to accurate diagnostic tools (like PCR) to guide treatment and surveillance of resistant infections.
6. Support awareness and education: Health campaigns, school programs, and social media advocacy can help spread responsible practices.

A Shared Responsibility

AMR threatens to erase decades of medical progress but if urgent action, with informed awareness and collective discipline, antibiotics could be safeguard for future generations.

It is important that every Nigerian be it patient, doctor, pharmacist, or policymaker, embrace this truth: Every unprescribed antibiotic used today weakens our defense for tomorrow.