Antimicrobial Resistance (AR) occurs when microbes (bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi) adapt to the antimicrobials (like antibiotics, antivirals, antiparasitics) and no longer respond to the medicine. Specifically, antibiotic resistance is when antibiotics (like amoxicillin, azithromycin and cefadroxil) are no longer effective against a specific bacteria.
The reason behind this problem is simple: the overuse of antibiotics. But more specifically, the root cause is the unnecessary use of antibiotics — especially when you have a viral infection and not a bacterial infection.
In the United States, 22% of antibiotics are unnecessarily prescribed due to the inability to accurately differentiate between bacterial and viral infections, contributing to 2.8 million annual drug-resistant cases and causing 35,000 deaths every year.