Schooling ourselves to protect our present and secure our future

Shobha Shukla
Contd from prev issue
“For us to reach that goal, Governments also committed to mobilise at least US$ 100 million by 2030, including through AMR Multi-Partner Trust Fund (AMR MPTF) and other mechanisms. This is a powerful signal that the world understands the urgency and shared responsibility. However, technical solutions alone won't win this fight. We need a shared responsibility,” said Dr Nyemazi.
"AMR is invisible but I am not"
"AMR is invisible, but the WHO was smart enough to recognise the value of stories of those with lived experiences of AMR," said Rob Purdie, AMR survivor and Member of WHO Task Force of AMR Survivors.
Around the time of new year 2012, Rob started having a headache and a terrible pain. Rob made several trips to healthcare facilities in the USA and was attended by several doctors and treated for a range of conditions (which later were found to be incorrectly diagnosed). He wrongly got treated for them- from sinus infections to cluster headaches etc.
Right diagnosis was Coccidioidomycosis - a form of meningitis caused by Valley fever, a disease caused by a fungus endemic in the soil of the south-west USA.
"My fungal disease of meningitis, primarily presents as pneumonia - and because of that it is one of the reasons that multiple prescriptions of antibiotics on an average are prescribed to patients of Coccidioidomycosis," said Rob.
Rob had to endure years of struggle and battle with AMR.
"Fungal AMR is very intertwined with agricultural use of pesticides. So rather than emerging from over prescription of antibiotics - which happens obviously on the bacterial side, it has more to do with the use of pesticides to control fungus in agriculture. That is an important example why One Health approach is so critical to address AMR," said Rob.
It is high time we stop misuse and overuse of antimicrobial medicines in all sectors - be it human health, animal health and livestock, or food and agriculture, and stop polluting our environment.
Let us hope this year's WAAW 2025 serves as another wake up call to accelerate science-based approaches to prevent AMR with One Health approach.

The writer is feminist, health and development justice advocate, and an award-winning founding Managing Editor and Executive Director of CNS (Citizen News Service).