Antimicrobial Drug Resistance, A 'Triad' of Epidemiological Factors.

Abstract

Over the years, as understanding of the factors associated with antimicrobial drug resistance has progressed, epidemiological study has broadened to include human behaviours, complexity of environment as well as pathogens as a triad of epidemiological factors responsible for the alarming upsurge of antimicrobial drug resistance. The effect on humans and how these challenges can be resolved need immediate attention. Antimicrobial resistance is the reduction in the efficacy of a drug such as antimicrobial drug in curing a microbial mediated infection. The use and misuse of antimicrobial drugs in human medicine and animal husbandry has been implicated as one of the causes of the unabated rise in the number and types of microorganism resistance leading to deaths of millions of people worldwide. Organisms that elicited drug resistant against many antibiotics are numerous and also the drugs(antibiotics) that were once known as 'magic bullets' have become metabolic precursor pools for these microorganisms to thrive, irrespective of their nomenclature as broad spectrum, narrow spectrum, extended spectrum etc and this has increase the morbidity and mortality rate and incurred higher healthcare cost. This review X-rayed the expanding scope of antimicrobial resistance, examined the triads of epidemiological factors in relation to social, economic and disease burdens that promotes the upsurge of resistance to conventional antibiotics and therapeutic failures and proffers useful recommendations that could be helpful in alleviating the problem.