The growing threat of antimicrobial resistance should concern us all. Our ability to battle basic infections has fueled massive leaps in medical, social and economic progress worldwide throughout the 20th century.
But treating this problem as a failure of the pharmaceutical industry is a mistake. Combating infectious disease is challenging even when effective medicines are cheaply available. For diseases like TB (caused by a bacterial infection) and malaria, access to medicines involves a complex interplay of private sector development and government implementation. When new products finally hit the market, inadequate public health infrastructure-and downright bad government policies-undermine distribution efforts and feed the emergence of medicine resistance as people receive incomplete or substandard treatments.
In short, it’s not just about producing cheap drugs, but also making sure that they get to those who require them. Unfortunately many governments prevent the latter while championing ever cheaper medicine production.
Full text of this article can be found at TheHill.com.
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