How Climate Change is creating Antibiotic Resistance

The Rise of Antibiotic Resistance

Antibiotic resistance (AR) is also known as antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Antimicrobials are substances such as antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitics that are used for treatment of infectious disease in humans, animals, and plants. Certain bacteria, fungi, viruses, or parasites can develop resistance to these antimicrobials, which is known as antimicrobial resistance. Antimicrobial resistance is an increasingly worrying problem, as more and more diseases have rendered near impossible to treat. There are many factors that can spur a disease evolving to become resistant to antimicrobials, many of which have become worse in recent years. The CDC released a report about antimicrobial resistance threats in 2019, in which the need to combat AMR is detailed. However, much of that progress was lost recently due to the pandemic, overuse of antimicrobials, and climate change. 

How Temperature Rise Drives Antimicrobial Resistance 

Climate change affects many of Earth’s delicate systems, such as temperature and weather, all of which have an impact on the behavior of disease. Climate change, being the sole cause of the Earth’s temperature rise, has therefore been indirectly driving diseases north where it was historically cooler but is now inhabitable for these infectious vectors. The rise of temperature also increases activity within the vectors, and makes a phenomenon called horizontal gene transfer happen faster. Horizontal gene transfer is a process where bacteria reproduce and swap genes with each other (genes which could code for antimicrobial resistance). Climate change makes the process of antimicrobial resistance happen at a much faster rate than it would otherwise. 

How Drought Drives Antimicrobial Resistance

Drought is a very common byproduct of climate change as well, often caused by the increase in temperature. Droughts cause shortages of both drinking water and water used for the production of crops. Around the world, many people become malnourished due to droughts, which can weaken their immune systems enough to let disease in much more easily. When infections spread quickly throughout populations like these, mutations for antimicrobial resistance can pop up much more frequently, leaving huge groups of people facing ever-increasing mortality rates. 

How Flooding Drives Antimicrobial Resistance

Although drought is often caused by climate change, the opposite can also occur. Higher temperatures mean that more water vapor can be held in the air, which eventually has to be let out somehow–in the form of precipitation. This extreme rain can cause flooding, which can completely limit access to or contaminate clean water sources. As infrastructure becomes overwhelmed by such large-scale disasters, displacement and lack of access to treatment creates an environment in which disease rages and creates the perfect conditions for reproduction, mutation, and horizontal gene transfer, all of which contribute to the rise of antimicrobial resistance in diseases. The combination of these three results of climate change end up costing lives, and if we can’t get climate change under control, it won’t change anytime soon. 

Impact and Action

Globally, as antimicrobial resistance becomes more and more common in pathogens, medical treatment will become more difficult as we’ve started to see. Along with the mass death that is inevitable if we keep letting climate change affect disease, the medical treatments that are accessible to people will have to become less effective and more invasive. We’ll have to resort to methods that modern medicine has largely exterminated, like amputation and debridement of tissue. This will likely create lasting injuries and health complications for people. Overall, these diseases will lead to death and lowered quality of healthcare for a huge amount of people. Research into new antimicrobials and other ways to prevent infection are key here, as is stopping climate change before it can cause more damage. 

Works Cited 

“Antimicrobial resistance.” World Health Organization (WHO), 21 November 2023, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance. Accessed 9 August 2024.

“The Antimicrobial Resistance Crisis: Causes, Consequences, and Management.” NCBI, 1 September 2014, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4165128/. Accessed 9 August 2024.

Dogan, Eva, and Felipe Colón. Climate change and antimicrobial resistance | News | Wellcome, 21 November 2022, https://wellcome.org/news/climate-change-antimicrobial-resistance. Accessed 9 August 2024.

“2019 Antibiotic Resistance Threats Report | Antimicrobial Resistance.” CDC, 16 July 2024, https://www.cdc.gov/antimicrobial-resistance/data-research/threats/index.html. Accessed 9 August 2024.