The COVID pandemic has exposed long-standing structural fault lines in societies – especially in health systems. These same inequalities also drive another major global health concern: antimicrobial resistance.
The World Health Organization defines antimicrobial resistance as the process by which microbes change over time and no longer respond to medicines. This makes infections harder to treat. It also increases the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death. Resistance of bacteria to antibiotics is especially worrying.
