The international community tends to think of antimicrobial resistance – an escalating global crisis in itself – as distinct from climate change. But mounting evidence indicates that adverse weather and rising temperatures can facilitate the emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens.
GENEVA – It is widely believed that climate change is the single biggest threat to human health. A global temperature increase of 2° Celsius – a threshold that will likely be exceeded by the end of the century – could claim as many as one billion lives, with extreme weather events, heatwaves, droughts, flooding, infectious-disease outbreaks, and food shortages among the causes of death. But the situation may in fact be far worse, because the current forecasts fail to account for the inevitable increase in antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
GENEVA – It is widely believed that climate change is the single biggest threat to human health. A global temperature increase of 2° Celsius – a threshold that will likely be exceeded by the end of the century – could claim as many as one billion lives, with extreme weather events, heatwaves, droughts, flooding, infectious-disease outbreaks, and food shortages among the causes of death. But the situation may in fact be far worse, because the current forecasts fail to account for the inevitable increase in antimicrobial resistance (AMR).