Medicines which aim to relieve pain and suffering, may cure us of diseases and avert untimely deaths, are at increasing risk of becoming ineffective against disease-causing microbes. Antimicrobial resistance occurs when microbes such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites no longer respond to medicines. This makes common infections harder to treat, more expensive to treat, more difficult to treat, and increases the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.

THE CABINET has approved a national strategy to fight anti-microbial resistance (AMR), as statistics show that some 38,000 patients in Thailand are killed by drug-resistant superbugs every year.