Antimicrobial Resistance Surge in the Context of Pollution, War, and Pandemic

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been ringing like a knell among scientific communities and its proponents for the last few decades. There might be several reasons for the proliferation of AMR, but wars and pandemics also create situations suitable for pathogens to replicate, mutate, and develop immunity to combat antimicrobials. This review focuses on the conditions that prevail in war-torn regions and pandemic-stricken times, such as unprecedented types of wounds and infections, exodus of refugees from one geographical area to another, poor transportation, poor medical and laboratory services, overuse of antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), effluent from hospitals, and emerging pollutants such as microplastics (MPs), endocrine disruptive chemicals (EDCs), etc., that serves as an idle condition for the proliferation of antimicrobial-resistance bacteria and genes. The primary focus of this article is to identify the correlation between antimicrobials, emerging contaminants (ECs), and AMR, considering war and pandemic scenarios.