Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) may not sound familiar, but it is one of the most urgent threats to global health, according to medical experts.
At the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Dr. Dao Nguyen, director of the AMR Centre, explains why action is critical as Antimicrobial Awareness Week shines a spotlight on this issue.
“There’s really a crisis looming around the corner. Some of it is already a huge problem in many parts of the world, and the trends in Canada are not good. Infections are becoming more and more resistant to the antibiotics that we have,” said Dr. Nguyen.
“AMR relates to drug-resistant infections, bacterial infections primarily, and how infections can become resistant to a drug because the organisms, the microbes, no longer respond to antibiotics.”
In 2018, research funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada found that one in four infections was already resistant to the first-choice antibiotic, leading to about 5,400 deaths linked to antimicrobial resistance. But simple habits can help limit resistance from growing.
Dr. Nguyen adds, “Those trends have been increasing in parts of the world. Some of the most common infections, whether it’s a urinary tract infection or bloodstream infection, one in three of them are already resistant to some of the most powerful antibiotics that we have in places like Southeast Asia, India.”
Saying, “It can impact people in something as simple as a urinary tract infection, but the scary truth though is that it also causes very severe life-threatening infections, things that could cause death, or also an aspect that people don’t realize is that we need antibiotics to prevent or to treat all sorts of complications. So if you had surgery and you didn’t have an effective antibiotic, this could be complicated with an infection.”
Sophia Goldman, a PhD candidate of microbiology & immunology at McGill University, said, “Avoid taking unnecessary antibiotics for something like the flu or the common cold when these aren’t necessary. Keeping up with our hygiene, washing our hands, getting vaccinated in order to prevent infection from happening.”
Ashley McGibbon, another student working at the AMR Centre, focuses on copper, which is known for its natural antimicrobial properties.
“The end goal of my project is to develop a coating to apply to hospital surfaces to allow or to limit the spread of drug-resistant bacteria,” said McGibbon. “If we are able to replace these surfaces with an inherent antimicrobial, light copper, it’ll allow us to hopefully limit the spread of bacteria even more.”
The McGill AMR Centre brings together more than 50 faculty members from around 20 different departments, including McGibbon and Goldman, who run their outreach team.
“We’re doing this in order to promote a research community at McGill, so to try and bring together trainees from diverse fields. So that’s just microbiology, immunology, agriculture, engineering, and also to educate the general public about the threat of AMR,” said Goldman.
World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week runs from November 18 to 24, 2025.
“If you have a viral infection or if you have a condition that doesn’t need antibiotics, don’t just take it like candy,” said Dr. Nguyen.
