2017-11-19
During World Antibiotic Awareness Week a diversity of multinational actors in Latin America pronounced a manifest to stop the spread of antibiotic resistance for the health of the people.
Organizations from Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and more than 20 Latin American countries represented by the People's Health Movement joined this manifest.
The manifest says:
- We urge the international community to reaffirm and strengthen its efforts to contain antibiotic resistance through more effective and long-term measures.
- We demand the governments of the different Latin American countries and their health authorities to create the necessary conditions for the development and execution of National Action Plans on Antimicrobial Resistance. Both regarding human health services and upbringing of animals for human consumption, and to be supported by an ecological approach.
- We emphasize that it is urgent to continue building a paradigm, supported by new research on: the bacterial world, antibiotic resistance, the health relationship between animals, plants, human beings and the earth. With a view to develop a global strategy of education and awareness.
- We invite fraternal organizations of health professionals, ecologists, scientists, farmers, consumers, biodiversity networks, social movements, to convert the World Antibiotic Awareness Week to an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to the health and the life of everyone.
These facts initiated the manifest
- That antibiotic resistance threatens to undermine the effectiveness of modern medicine and more and more strains of bacteria are resistant to an increasing number of antimicrobials.
- That millions of people are being infected by bacteria resistant to antibiotics every year.
- That, according to the World Health Organization, antimicrobial resistance is the sixth public health problem in the world, and for 2050 is projected as the main cause of death.
- That the misuse and abuse of these medicines in human medicine, in the production of meat for human consumption, as well as the waste of animals from farms with antibiotic residues, the contamination of lakes, rivers and water sources by the pharmaceutical industry, not only accelerate and spread resistance, but also contaminate our food, air, water and soil, affecting our health and our planet.
- That bacteria resistance to antibiotics, just as global warming, has the capacity to affect all countries of the world.
- That antibiotic resistance could have critical consequences in countries of medium and low income.