A major health challenge of our time is when drugs no longer work to treat infections. This happens when the agents that cause infections – they may be bacteria, viruses or fungi – become resistant to the drugs.
Antimicrobials are a broad range of medications that act on microbes – like bacteria, fungi, viruses, or parasites. Antibiotics, for instance, are one type of antimicrobial working against bacteria.
Resistance to antimicrobial drugs therefore makes it difficult to treat and prevent a wide range of infections.
