Antimicrobial Resistance: The Potent Enemy Lurking Behind COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has emerged as a global pandemic due to its high transmissibility and pathogenicity. It is a beta clade zoonotic coron-avirus like severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Though no effective medication has been developed against the deadly COVID-19 disease, henceforth old antimicrobial drugs have been repurposed to treat the COVID-19 patients. In this report, a brief account of the used medication and the potential mechanism of antimicrobial drugs against SARS-CoV-2 has been provided. Based on the earlier in-cidences, the antimicrobials are expected to lose the battle against SARS-CoV-2. The vast lacuna in the research and development of vaccines has led to overuse of the already formulated antimicro-bial drugs, which in turn has led to a distressing problem called "Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)". A complete assay of AMR has been given including its cause, mechanism, spread, and conse-quences. The other two interlinked problems, namely environmental deterioration and secondary in-fections, are elaborated. Moreover, to combat the AMR problem, the way forward has been discussed in detail.Copyright © 2021 Bentham Science Publishers.