Resources for antibiotic awareness

[Ian Town to camera]

Well just what exactly is antimicrobial resistance?

The key thing to remember is it’s not related to individual behaviour or resistance developing in humans themselves.

The resistance actually develops in the bugs themselves.

[John Roche to camera]

It’s not quite 100 years since Professor Alexander Fleming made his serendipitous discovery that a spot of mould in an agar plate prevented the growth of bacteria.

And yet, in the ensuing century the discovery has saved countless lives and added decades to our life expectancy.

And yet, here we are, less than a hundred years later at risk of losing it all – of returning to a world that predates antimicrobials because of their ineffectiveness in treating common conditions.

[Juliet Gerrard to camera]

So this isn’t just a problem in Aotearoa New Zealand, it’s a global problem.

It’s been highlighted as one of the top ten global threats by the World Health Organization and there’s huge evidence indices out there from places like the World Bank really supporting that this is a major global issue.

[Souixsie Wiles to camera]

So, what can we do about it?

Well, learning about antimicrobial resistance and talking to our friends and family about it is really important.

If your doctor prescribes you antibiotics, ask them - are following the latest guidelines?

If they don’t prescribe antibiotics, well trust them, you don’t need them.

Remember antibiotics don’t work against viruses.

[Ian Town to camera]

So our doctors and nurses and other prescribers across New Zealand are really well aware of the need to use antibiotics wisely.

[John Roche to camera]

We need to handle these antimicrobials with care.

I’m really worried about what the future’s going to be like without antimicrobial agents like antibiotics.

It’s going to be like turning the clock back a hundred years - common infections will become deadly again and things like surgery will be really risky.

So, what can we do about it?

Well, learning about antimicrobial resistance and talking to our friends and family about it is really important.

If your doctor prescribes you antibiotics, ask them if they are following the latest guidelines?

If they don’t prescribe antibiotics, then trust them, you don’t need them.

Remember antibiotics don’t work against viruses.

Antimicrobial resistance is when organisms like bacteria develop a resistance to the medicines that we usually use to treat them.

And that causes a problem because then those medicines are less effective and sometimes completely ineffective at treating diseases caused by those organisms.

The research community is constantly look at how we can create more antibiotics, but antibiotics are actually very technically difficult to make and we're not making that many, and so we really can't rely on new antibiotics being developed in time in order to match the growing resistance that we're seeing across the world.

So what we need to do is much more careful with the use of the antibiotics that we do have in place.

In some parts of the world we're already seeing a significant impact where diseases like TB are no longer able to be treated by the standard medicines that we've used for some years and so diseases we're literally running out of antibiotics that we can use to treat those diseases.

And we're seeing some of that in New Zealand.

New Zealand is part of a global community, we've got people who travel both to and from New Zealand.

So what's happening in the rest of the world affects us equally and it's up to us to do our part as well.

So we in New Zealand have developed our own action plan.

We've taken guidance from the World Health Organisation and other entities across the world, in terms of what are the priorities that we need to address.

Our action plan was released earlier this year and we're working through the different areas of focus in that action plan.

One of the key areas of focus is raising awareness and understanding about what antimicrobial resistance is and a key message there is around the use of antibiotics, the appropriate use of antibiotics so that we don't overuse antibiotics.

Other areas that we're working on in the action plan is our links with the veterinary world and use of antibiotics for animals and so we're working very closely with the Ministry for Primary Industries because it's not just what happens in health that's important, it's actually the use of antibiotics both for animals and also use of other antimicrobials in the plant world.

I think it's a significant challenge, I think we all have to play our part.

I think that research and surveillance is a really important part of that so that we develop a much better understanding of what's actually happening in New Zealand, we need to be aware of that.

We do need to be very careful about how we use our antibiotics, I think that's something that we can do here and now and I think if we all work together as we are doing and as we're doing across the world, then I think we will be up for to face the challenge.