World Health Day 2011 is dedicated to antimicrobial resistance, a major threat to patient care and disease control throughout the world. Antimicrobial resistance is a significant obstacle to success in controlling HIV, malaria and tuberculosis—three of the world's leading infectious killers. This serious problem also makes it more difficult to treat hospital-acquired infections, facilitates the emergence of "superbugs" that are resistant to major antibiotics, and creates the need for new, more expensive and more complex treatments.
As the World Health Organization prepares to mark World Health Day April 7, the U.N. agency is urging stepped-up international efforts to address the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which are posing increasingly serious public health threats, especially in hospitals. Vidushi Sinha has more in the first of two reports.