Overcome Barriers to Generating Quality Antimicrobial Resistance Data

Antibiotics have saved countless lives since they were first developed in the late 1930s. These wonder drugs make it possible for people to recover from otherwise deadly, and sometime highly contagious illnesses. However, in the 1970s, antibacterial resistance topped the charts as a major public health threat, as once curable diseases were fatal again! Today over 25,000 people die annually in Europe alone, due to bacterial infections that do not respond to treatment. This is just the beginning. If you as the patient, the physician, the politician, the farmer, or the researcher doesn't take action today, we will not only become unable to treat infections, we will also lose the ability to provide cancer treatment, perform complex surgery, provide dialysis for renal disease, and perform organ or bone marrow transplantation! This study provides comprehensive background information about this topic. It also uncovers a fascinating group of challenges faced and solutions utilized by researchers in the Central Asian and Eastern European region, as they work to generate antimicrobial resistance data for the World Health Organization Regional Surveillance System, also know as CAESAR.