Cormac O Grada Public Lecture: "Cast Back into the Dark Ages of Medicine? The Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance"
Cormac O Grada Public Lecture: "Cast Back into the Dark Ages of Medicine? The Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance"
Monday 15 Oct 2018Cormac Ó Gráda from the University College Dublin will be delivering a public lecture at The University of Warwick:
Tuesday 28th April 2015
6:00pm — 7:15pm
Room: S2.79 Economics Dept., Social Sciences, University of Warwick (directions)
- With the virtual eradication of most infectious diseases, life expectancy in the UK and other high-income countries has doubled in the last century or so.
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The gains in poor countries have been smaller, but still significant.
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The welfare gains associated with the control of infection have been huge.
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Most of the increase in life expectancy preceded the antibiotics revolution
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Public health measures have been essential to the story of controlling infectious diseases.
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The challenge of AMR needs to be set in historical context: though real, it does not have to mean a return to ‘the dark ages of medicine’.
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Meeting the challenge requires a focus on both supply of antimicrobials (the ‘pipeline’) and the demand for them (consumption).
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There is considerable scope for reducing consumption and thereby resistance.
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Public health measures and health education can usefully reinforce measures to restrain consumption.
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The pipeline is not as dry as usually claimed.