'The silent pandemic': What is the EU doing to fight Antimicrobial Resistance?

Back in 2013, Iñaki Morán spent 20 consecutive days in bed. His body had been ambushed by bacteria resistant to medicines. It was to be the first in a long list of similar attacks.

"I was regularly admitted to hospital. I was admitted in 2016, in 2017 and in 2018. For different bacteria, different germs," he told Smart Health.

63-year-old Iñaki suffers from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). He's also been treated for colon and lung cancers.

Bacteria resistant to treatments caused further havoc in a body already at the edge.

"My quality of life was greatly reduced. A planned pulmonary transplant was jeopardised. If the lungs are persistently infected, as was the case with me, then the transplant can simply be called off. In the end, I was lucky; I had a double-lung transplant. The worst was avoided," Iñaki revealed.

Antimicrobial Resistance – or AMR - is mainly driven by overuse and misuse of antibiotics, antiseptics and antifungals. It affects humans, animals, plants and the environment.

AMR causes some 35,000 deaths every year in the European Union, with annual healthcare costs and productivity losses estimated at €1.5 billion.

Regular seminars help EU patients, physicians, pharmaceutical representatives, researchers and policymakers discuss prevention and control measures of what they call "a silent pandemic".

Experts agree Antimicrobial Resistance is among the top three health threats currently faced by the European Union.

Dr María Cruz Soriano Cuesta is the Head of the Internal Medicine Unit in a large public hospital in Madrid.

"There are extensive epidemiological studies involving more than 1,000 Intensive Care Units showing that on a given day, more than 50 per cent of the patients admitted have an active