The book Super-Bugs: An Arms Race Against Bacteria is a stellar read on the looming antimicrobial resistance crisis.Kudos to the authors on this super book, the best that I have read on the topic
The writers take a complicated subject and neatly break it down into its component parts with clear and direct writing.
Antibiotic resistance is not seen as an immediate urgency as it is a slow moving issue that on a day-to-day basis people do not experience or see. This poses a massive challenge for policy makers. Couple this with antibiotic overuse (both in humans and in animals) and the financial disincentives for pharmaceutical companies to developed and market new drugs and a crisis awaits.
Realistic solutions are offered and include public-private partnerships for drug development, antimicrobial stewardship (both in humans and in agriculture) and heightened infection prevention.
Complicated problems need sensible, multi-modal approaches, as expertly argued. This is no dry, academic tome.
Here is a well written commentary in The Telegraph (UK) exploring the above in greater detail.
Read on.
