What if the drugs don’t work?

Infections that would have quickly killed us a hundred years ago are rarely a cause for concern nowadays. Antimicrobials protect us from infections caused by microbes such as bacteria, fungi and viruses. But the speed at which microbes become resistant to these drugs is accelerating rapidly. Jessica Mitchell is exploring effective ways for our communities – global, national, and local – to come together and respond.

Anti-microbial resistance is already responsible for 700,000 deaths a year; unless we act soon, this could rise to 10 million.

—Dr Jessica Mitchell

Impact

• Reducing health inequalities: communicating information, risks and solutions to affected communities
• Community collaboration: learning from communities to create locally meaningful solutions
• Interdisciplinarity: evolving the conversation about anti-microbial resistance from the medical focus to include social dynamics, such as how to communicate information, risks and solutions

Key information

• Major funders: Global Challenges Research Fund
• Partners and collaborators: ARK Foundation, HERD International, Malaria Consortium
• Disciplines: health, medicine, health inequalities
• Investigators: Dr Jessica Mitchell

Keywords: antibiotics, AMR, behavioural ecology, biology, community health