Contributed by: Dr. Nishtha Khatri & Dr. Ashok Tamhankar
In the COVID-19 pandemic era, it is time to think about another potential apocalypse: Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). As per an editorial published by Prasanth et al. in the journal of ‘Infectious Mircobes and Diseases’, several clinical reports show that 60-70 % of patients had received antibiotics when they contracted COVID-19. The article highlights an increase in the trend of antibiotic usage in the COVID-19 era explaining the reasons for the same. It also throws light upon the potential consequences of AMR and mentions about certain positive initiatives undertaken to combat AMR. For more details about this check the following link : https://journals.lww.com/imd/Fulltext/2020/09000/Will_the_Overuse_of_Antibiotics_During_the.1.aspx. In line with the earlier mentioned article , a perspective article by Lucien at al. in press in ‘International Journal of Infectious Diseases’ too highlights an uptrend in antibiotic usage on account of bacterial superinfection in COVID-19 patients. It also focuses upon the need to conduct studies that could evaluate the worldwide evolution of AMR during the COVID-19 pandemic. Link to this article is as follows: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971221000163
