On Marie-Cécile Ploy’s jacket, a pin represents two intertwined hearts, one white and the other red, a symbol of the fight against antibiotic resistance: together they form antibiotic capsules. As World Antibiotic Resistance Prevention Day approaches on November 18, the director of the Resinfit laboratory at the University of Limoges still remembers the testimonies she heard at the UN in New York a few days ago. Those of women and men whose wounds, sometimes minor, caused infections that could have been fatal. The cause: the resistance of bacteria to the antibiotics administered to them. They came to testify as survivors of a silent epidemic, responsible for 1.3 million deaths each year worldwide.
At the end of this meeting on antibiotic resistance, UN member states adopted a political declaration and 48 actions. With the aim of strengthening the fight against antibiotic resistance, around the closely related issues of human, animal and environmental health.
“One health”
A true revolution in the 1940s, widely spread in the 1970s, antibiotics made it possible to control bacterial infections. But its massive use has also favored the development of antibiotic resistance, that is, the resistance of certain bacteria to these drugs. And if the use of antibiotics decreased significantly during the Covid-19 crisis, the early return of common seasonal epidemics after the pandemic has caused a 14% increase in the consumption of these products since 2022.
The “One Health” approach or “One health, one planet” Promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2015, it is one of the recommendations to combat antibiotic resistance. “One Health means that man does not exist alone, but with his environment”, summarizes Marie-Cécile Ploy. The interactions between humans, animals and the environment are the center of the work of its research unit, certified by Inserm (National Institute of Health and Medical Research) since 2012. Objective: “Understanding how bacteria acquire resistance to treatments, from the acquisition mechanisms to the development of diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring”explains.
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