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Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy and Scottish Action Plan
Background to the Strategy
1
The increasing prevalence of antimicrobial resistant micro-organisms, especially those with multiple resistances, is causing international concern.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) makes infections more difficult to treat. It may also increase the length and severity of illness, the period of infectiousness, adverse reactions (due to the need to use less safe alternative drugs), length of hospital admission and costs.
Antimicrobial resistance ultimately jeopardises not only our ability to treat infectious disease and infection, but also the use of other technological advances in medical and veterinary treatment that depend, in part, on our ability to control infection.
The emergence of resistance represents adaptive selection which is to some extent an inevitable result of the therapeutic use of antimicrobial agents: killing or suppressing drug-sensitive organisms allows naturally drug-resistant ones to emerge which can then not only spread but also transfer their resistances to other organisms. This makes it imperative that measures are taken to slow - or at least delay - the emergence of resistance, to both existing agents and new ones as they come into use, and to limit its spread.
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