Article Text
Abstract
Antibiotic resistance threatens the capacity to treat life-threatening infections. If it is accepted that it will be many years (if not decades) until the production of new antibiotics overcomes current concerns with antibiotic resistance then ways to conserve the effectiveness of current antibiotics will have to be found. For many bacterial agents of infection levels of antibiotic resistance are directly dependent on the quantity of antibiotic prescribed. Antibiotics are currently underutilised in many parts of the world. If a just distribution of access to antibiotics requires equal access for individuals with equal need irrespective of wealth then responding to this requirement of justice has the potential to shorten the effective life of currently available antibiotics. Increasing the range and numbers of individuals treated with antibiotics would seem to threaten sustainability and also potentially undermine the access of future generations to cost-effective treatments for bacterial infection. The control of antibiotic resistance requires that the determinants of infectious disease transmission are addressed, such as poor housing, education and nutrition as well as the provision of antibiotics. The apparent tension between intragenerational justice and sustainability diminishes when the account of distributive justice extends beyond access to antibiotics and includes plural entitlements. Controlling antibiotic resistance requires more than the redistribution or reduction (in the overall use) of antibiotics.
- Social control of science/technology
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Competing interests None.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Request Permissions
If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.
Copyright information:
Read the full text or download the PDF:
Other content recommended for you
- Constraining the use of antibiotics: applying Scanlon 's contractualism
- Management of antibiotic - resistant infection in the newborn
- Equity of access to health care: outlining the foundations for action
- A national pharmacoepidemiological study of antibiotic use in Korean paediatric outpatients
- EpideMiology and control measures of outBreaks due to Antibiotic - Resistant orGanisms in EurOpe (EMBARGO): a systematic review protocol
- Faecal microbiota transplant to ERadicate gastrointestinal carriage of Antibiotic Resistant Organisms (FERARO): a prospective, randomised placebo - controlled feasibility trial
- Collective action and individual choice: rethinking how we regulate narcotics and antibiotics
- Ethics and geographical equity in health care
- Unnatural selection: reducing antibiotic resistance in neonatal units
- Study protocol for One Health data collections, analyses and intervention of the Sino - Swedish integrated multisectoral partnership for antibiotic resistance containment (IMPACT)