What is antimicrobial resistance and how does it happen?
Antimicrobial resistance (as well as antibiotic resistance) occurs when a microorganism develops the ability to resist the action of an antimicrobial. Basically, the microorganism develops the ability to survive and reproduce in the presence (and dose) of an antimicrobial that used to prevent these actions. In general, it’s really only considered “resistance” when it occurs in an organism that used to be susceptible to an antimicrobial’s effects but now is not susceptible; this doesn’t really apply to an organism that was never susceptible to that antimicrobial. How resistance develops is a very complex process, and we don’t really know all of the factors or events that can make it happen. We do know that an organism can undergo a change in its DNA that makes it resistant to one or more antimicrobials – this change might just be an accident that turns out to be fortunate for that organism, or it might be in response to something else, such as the use of antimicrobials – and it might tr
