A health crisis is rapidly unfolding worldwide. It causes suffering and death, costs billions and threatens to overwhelm health-care systems, patients and their families.
No, it’s not the coronavirus pandemic. It’s that other disastrous health crisis: drug resistance. Bacteria and other microbes that cleverly change and evolve are outsmarting the antimicrobials once hailed as miraculous cures. Worldwide, 700,000 people die each year due to drug-resistant diseases, according to the World Health Organization.
Until a few months ago, drug-resistant disease was one of the world’s top health concerns. Now it takes a back seat to the coronavirus pandemic. Muhammad Hamid Zaman is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor at Boston University. His book, Biography of Resistance: The Epic Battle Between People and Pathogens, was released by Harper Wave on April 21.
We talked to Zaman about these two epic health crises.
Read more from National Public Radio here.