Jonathan Pearce, CEO, selects some highlights from the April 2023 issue of the Antibiotic Research UK newsletter, which contains lots of exciting news and developments about the charity’s work, as well as a round-up of what’s happening in the wider world of antibiotic resistance.

Even when we’re working in the field of antibiotic resistance, it can be easy to forget the miracle of modern medicine that antibiotics represent, and it’s often personal stories or experiences that remind us. Such was my experience last month when my Mum developed sepsis and it was only the quick-thinking of her husband, the doctors and nurses at her local hospital and intravenous antibiotics that saved her life. Up and down the country, and across the world, similar experiences and stories are playing themselves out every hour of every day, and often without such positive outcomes. Awareness of antibiotic resistance still isn’t high enough on the political agenda and yet it needs to be if we are to slow down its relentless march and find new antibiotics and alternatives to them.

Along with funding and supporting important research, Antibiotic Research UK also aims to raise awareness levels, in particular by bringing insights from the experiences of patients and their families and friends to a wider audience. We want to do more of this and also make sure that health/clinical research, policy and practice properly reflects and involves those patient experiences and stories. We plan to do this in a number of ways:

Building patient/carer advisory groups and communities based upon personal experiences of antibiotic-resistant infections, whether that’s a urinary tract, respiratory, blood, skin/soft tissue or sexually transmitted infection, sepsis or indeed any other relevant disease or condition.

Supporting and using those groups and communities to provide expert advice and insight to researchers, the pharmaceutical, diagnostic and healthcare industry, and health policy-makers on the lived experience of antibiotic resistance, in order to speed up and improve national and international measures to tackle antibiotic resistance.

Supporting more people to act as Patient Ambassadors for Antibiotic Research UK.

BBC Radio 4: Today talks to WHO Assistant Director General Dr Hanan Balkhy about the challenges of antimicrobial resistance (at 50:28 mins) and innovative solutions to incentivize R&D are discussed in detail with Dr Amit Aggarwal, Executive Director of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (at 1:50:55)

The Guardian: ´A growing threat to human health’: we are ill-equipped for the dangers of fungal infections

Daily Telegraph: A superfungus could be the next global health threat – so are we ready?

Daily Mail: UK set to approve first new antibiotic in more than 20 years that kills superbugs, which cause 1.7 million UTIs every year, and outperforms drug currently available to NHS patients

If you have personal experience of an antibiotic-resistant infection, whether as a patient, carer, family member or friend, and are interested in supporting the above plans, then please get in touch with me at: CEO@antibioticresearch.org.uk.

With very best wishes
Jonathan

Jonathan Pearce, CEO, Antibiotic Research UK

You can find out what else we’re doing to tackle antibiotic resistance, how we plan to do this and what you can do to get involved, by signing up to our newsletter here and via our social media channels.

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