Image Credit: amr.gov.au
One of my interests is in the growing global problem of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). You’d have to have been hiding under a rock to not have heard of this of course, but it’s truly a major problem and an early report estimated that there could be as many as 10 million deaths a year by 2050 caused by AMR, more than cancer which was estimated at 8.2 million. ( AMR Review Paper - Tackling a crisis for the health and wealth of nations_1.pdf (amr-review.org) )
This number has been questioned in another paper Will 10 Million People Die a Year due to Antimicrobial Resistance by 2050? - PMC (nih.gov) , however, there is wide acceptance that AMR is a major public health crisis and all countries need to be proactive in addressing this.
So it was with interest that I came across this article today, which essentially shows how different countries are doing in the fight against AMR Measuring the global response to antimicrobial resistance, 2020–21: a systematic governance analysis of 114 countries - ScienceDirect. As an Australian based company, its pleasing to note that Australia ranks right up there in 8th place, with a fairly well established set of systems in place in the key areas of AMR policy design, implementation tools, and monitoring and evaluation. While we can’t afford to sit back on our heels, it’s good to know that the public servants and medical professionals involved in the development of the Australian National Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy are tracking well at this point. If you’re interested in this, you will find all the relevant information here Antimicrobial resistance (amr.gov.au)
Disinfectants and Hand Hygiene
While AMR is primarily about antibiotic resistance, how does all of this relate to disinfectant use, and hand hygiene? To quote from the AMR site mentioned above:
Poor hygiene and poor infection prevention and control can:
- provide more opportunity for resistant bacteria and other germs to spread
- make more people sick and increase the need for antibiotics.
Hand hygiene is the most important way of preventing the spread of infections including antibiotic resistant infections.
We’ve already seen the massive importance of proper hand hygiene during the Covid pandemic, and we know how well this works. But equally important is the selection of a suitable broad spectrum disinfectant that will effectively knock out pathogens in realistically short contact time periods. Use of ineffective products, or those untested or unregulated with no proven results, is not helping us combat AMR. Equally, correct dilution of these disinfectants is vital, as over-dilution will result in a weakened product that may not perform as expected, and potentially not kill all bacteria which can lead to resistance build-up. Under-dilution simply wastes money, and with some products could result in OH&S issues from using a solution that is too strong.
We can all contribute to the AMR battle by ensuring that the disinfectants we use do measure up, and we use them correctly. Of course I’ll note that the F10 range is one such example. Broad spectrum kill, safe and fast acting – the F10 products are excellent weapons in this battle.
