Develop more vaccines to combat ‘silent pandemic’ of antimicrobial resistance: WHO

The UN Agency has released its first report on the vaccine pipeline currently in development, which is intended to guide further investment and research.Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites change from time to time and no longer respond to drugs, making infections more difficult to treat and increase the risk of spreading disease, severe disease and death.

Millions of deaths

“Silent Pandemic” is a public health problem that grows, which says.The resistant bacterial infection is associated with nearly five million deaths per year, and more than 1.2 million deaths are directly associated with AMR.This report identifies 61 vaccine candidates, which include some that are in the final stages of development even though most of them will not be available in the near future.Preventing infection using vaccination reduces the use of antibiotics, one of the main drivers of AMR, said Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the Assistant Director General for Antimicrobial Resistance.

Equitable access

However, of the top six bacterial pathogens responsible for death due to AMR, only one – pneumococcal disease – has a vaccine.”Affordable and fair access to the vaccine that saves lives like those against Pneumococcus, is needed to save lives, and reduce the revival of AMR,” he said.Which also calls for fair and global access to existing vaccines, such as those against four priority bacterial pathogens which include pneumococcal disease, tuberculosis and typhoid fever.

Learning from the pandemic

“An annoying approach is needed to enrich the pipes and accelerate the development of vaccines. The lesson from the development of the Covid-19 vaccine and the MRNA vaccine offers unique opportunities to explore to develop vaccines on bacteria, “said Dr. Haileysusa Genah, Director of the Global Coordination Department AMR Agency.

This report also sees several challenges faced by innovation and vaccine development, including pathogens associated with infections obtained in hospitals.Problems include difficulties in defining the target population among all hospital patients who are treated, costs and complexity of vaccine efficacy tests, and lack of regulations or policy precedents for vaccines against infection.

“The development of vaccines is expensive, and scientifically challenging, often with high failure rates, and for successful candidates, complex regulatory and manufacturing requirements require further time. We have to take advantage of the Covid vaccine development lesson and speed up our search for vaccines to overcome AMR, “said Dr. Kate O’Brien, Director of the Department of WHO for immunization, vaccine, and biological.