Zeitschrift für Tropenkrankheiten und öffentliche Gesundheit

Abstrakt

Review on Ethical Approaches to Antimicrobial Resistance

Debeli Tadesse Amente1, Henok Mulatu2*, Wazir Shafi1

The world is fast approaching a time whereby people will die from infections because there are no longer any effective drugs. This will change the face of medicine, as we know it, since many modern medical procedures are highly dependent upon antimicrobial protection. This might appear to be chiefly a problem for doctors and scientists but the nature of widespread AMR embodies a large number of ethical and moral issues, influencing every aspect of infection management and potentially affecting everyone. The objectives of this review is to introduce and discuss some of the most important ethical approaches associated with AMR and its control, including national and international responsibilities, pharmaceutical companies, prescribing, education, advertising, veterinary and agricultural practices, infection control and patient behaviour. Given the enormous importance of antimicrobial drugs for the functioning and delivery of modern health care, the progressive exhaustion of effective antibiotics presents health care professionals and policy makers with a distributive dilemma that raises complex moral questions of justice, especially how to fairly allocate antimicrobial resources.