ReAct 20 in Latin America: 3 publications on action on AMR and care for life

2025-10-23

2025, marking ReAct’s 20th anniversary, ReAct Latin America highlighted the importance of viewing health from a holistic perspective, recognizing the interdependence between human beings, food, water, and the Earth. Publications published and meetings held so far demonstrate that antibiotic resistance, biodiversity loss, and environmental crises cannot be addressed in isolation.

Microbiome: Essence of life. Food, One Health

In the context of World Microbiome Day 2025, the book Microbiome: Essence of Life. Food, One Health was presented. This collective work invites us to rethink our relationship with microorganisms, bodies, territories and health.

The work proposes a paradigm shift: abandoning the war metaphor that has historically dominated medicine and moving toward a symbiotic, interdependent, and caring vision of human and planetary health. Understanding the role of the microbiome in digestion and the immune system is essential to reducing the unnecessary use of antibiotics and strengthening prevention.

It was presented in university spaces of great symbolic and academic value in Argentina and Ecuador, including the Faculty of Medicine of the National University of Mar del Plata, the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Cuenca, and the Pumapungo Health Center, generating moving encounters of dialogue and reflection. Healthcare professionals, teachers, and students committed to a more holistic view of life were invited.

The book was developed by an academic and multi-sectoral team made up of researchers, physicians, educators, and artists committed to the Mother Earth – One Health approach. With accessible and deeply human language, it becomes an educational and awareness-raising tool aimed at citizens, healthcare professionals, and communities interested in understanding life from its most intimate fabric: interconnectedness.

Living earth, food and health

This work is a call to action and a profound reflection on our relationship with the earth and the food that nourishes us. Through its pages, it invites us to experience the invisible world that inhabits and sustains us.

The book offers a comprehensive and sensitive look at food: not only as a biological act, but as an expression of culture, affection, identity, and balance. From the time of Hippocrates to the present, food has been recognized as the best medicine. With this premise, the book argues that a diverse, natural, and lovingly prepared diet is key to people’s physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

This reflection takes on particular relevance in the face of antibiotic resistance, as industrial food systems based on monocultures and the use of antibiotics in animal production deteriorate both human health and ecosystems. Therefore, this book promotes a shift toward biodiverse, conscious, and antibiotic-free diets as a way to prevent disease and reduce antibiotic resistance.

International Meeting on water, food and antibiotics

Between May 14 and 17, 2025, the International Meeting on Water, Food, and Antibiotics took place in the city of Cuenca. This was a space for dialogue, reflection, and action based on the Mother Earth – One Health Approach.

For four days, representatives of 18 social organizations in Ecuador met with voices from around the world. from Argentina, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil, to understand the profound interrelationship between water, food, and antibiotics.

Researchers, teachers, water advocates, environmental activists, producers, artists, communicators, and young people debated, shared knowledge, experiences, and proposals to address the challenges that threaten life in all its forms.

The roundtable discussions addressed pressing topics such as:

• The water cycle in Latin America and its effects on human, animal, and environmental health.
• The impacts of the global agri-food system on antibiotic resistance and climate change.
• Environmental pollution resulting from antibiotic use.

The resulting publication is a living memory of the collaborative work that ReAct Latin America has promoted for two decades, strengthening the connection between peoples, academia, communities, and diverse sectors. It is a fabric of voices, knowledge, and feelings that reminds us that:

“Defending life is not an individual act, it is a community fabric interwoven with dignity and tenderness.”