Build Back Better Blog series: Concept Note

The zoonosis of COVID-19, and ensuing pandemic, has led to the phrase “build back better”, referring to the creation of a fairer and more equitable society. This is valid not just for human life but animals and the environment, a One Health goal.  This pandemic has highlighted the ways humans have disconnected with nature whilst showing we are an equally vulnerable part of earth’s fragile ecosystem.  The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been highlighted by some leaders, policy makers and academics as a roadmap to help us build back better.  However, having received limited attention since their inception in 2012, it is questionable how effective road mapping our “new normal” against the SDGs might be.  Additionally, despite the SDGs One Health considerations of human, animal and environmental life, they currently ignore a major One Health and global crisis which is often conflated with pandemics and new disease outbreaks.  This crisis is antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the process by which pathogens (bacteria, fungi etc) change to survive the drugs designed to treat them. AMR is driven by many of the same behavioral actions which led to the COVID-19 zoonosis (poor hygiene, environmental destruction, cross species conflict), as well as common domestic actions, such as misuse of antibiotics to treat viral infections or failure to comply with antimicrobial dosage guidance. AMR is an active threat, likened in severity to the climate crisis but similarly operating just under our immediate attention.  It is on course to cause up to 300 million global deaths per year by 2050, which will account for more human deaths than cancers and heart diseases combined.  We now face an unprecedented opportunity to truly build back better and change our global society.  Consideration of AMR in this process will be crucial to future-proof our efforts.

CE4AMR will be hosting a series of essays and blogs to consider how building AMR into the SDG-roadmap could strengthen our response to future global challenges and allow us to create an equitable and sustainable ‘new normal’ across the One Health Sphere.  We are framing this series within the context of Global South settings, as our CE4AMR partners and funded projects are exclusively LMIC based.  If you would like to contribute a blog, essay, debate, film or other artistic response to this topic please do get in touch with Jess and Nichola (j.mitchell1@leeds.ac.uk and hs17naj@leeds.ac.uk ).  We look forward to hearing from you and hope you enjoy the content we will be sharing in the coming weeks.   

Upcoming blogs

AMR and the SDGs: aren't we missing something? By Nichola Jones

COVID-19 as a One Health challenge, and its parallels with AMR. By Jess Mitchell