Can vaccination help overcome antimicrobial resistance?

Contributed by Dr. Nishtha Khatri & Dr. Ashok Tamhankar

The relatedness between vaccination and reduction in use of antibiotics seems to be a newly surfacing area of interest for researchers. Emerging evidence is suggestive that routine childhood vaccination could lower antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The hypothesis behind this is that vaccination could possibly reduce the burden of vaccine preventable diseases and secondary infections by reducing the consumption of antimicrobials. A recent study published in the ‘Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences’ looked into the association between vaccine use and antibiotic consumption from 2009 to 2017 in the private health sector in India. This study showed that vaccines induced long term reduction in antibiotic usage in the Indian scenario. These findings were seen to be in synchrony with the findings from studies conducted in other low and middle income countries.However, vaccination alone cannot curb AMR and other approaches such as stewardship programmes, infection control measures must be executed in an efficient manner to lower antibiotic use.