Combating antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
I was a healthy 25-year-old newlywed when an antimicrobial-resistant infection turned my life upside down. In extreme pain, I went to an emergency room, where I was misdiagnosed with a strep infection, treated with antibiotics and sent home. In no time, the infection moved to my lungs and landed me in the ICU. Different doctors then diagnosed my condition as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a very difficult staph infection for which the initial antibiotic no longer worked. After quarantine and many weeks of treatment, I was released. We never did learn how I got the infection. Today, I live with a chronic cough and the reality that the infection might return. And while I survived, 700,000* people die every year around the world from incurable infections—and this is getting worse rather than better. AMR is a ticking time bomb. I support the effort to raise awareness so you, and your family, never face what I have been enduring. Because all of us need to be resistance fighters.