Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), says Chief Medical Officer Dr Joy St John, is posing a threat to the treatment of HIV infection and has already become a serious problem in the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.
Antimicrobial or drug resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites adapt to medicine to which they were previously sensitive.
Speaking on Antimicrobial Resistance And Its Global Spread at the start of a health fair yesterday in the Manor Lodge Car Park, at Lodge Hill, St Michael, St John said the HIV Laboratory at the Lady Meade Reference Unit was therefore equipping itself to detect such early resistance.
The Chief Medical Officer told patrons, on behalf of Minister of Health Donville Inniss, that drug resistance was “a major concern since the success reaped in the use of antiretrovirals has allowed those infected to maintain stable and productive lives”. AMR reduces the effectiveness of treatments because patients remain sicker for longer.
At the fair sponsored by the Lions and Leos Club of Barbados and Everson R. Elcock & Company Limited, and in acknowledgment of World Health Day, St John added that staff at Lady Meade would be keeping a keen eye out having been trained in methods to detect HIV drug resistance.
As to STDs, she said untreated infections such as gonorrhea would result in increased rates of illness and death, thus reversing the gains made in the control of sexually transmitted infections.
St John said it was therefore necessary “to institute efficient surveillance and monitoring systems to ensure that there are adequate systems to achieve uninterrupted supplies of quality medicines”.