Making sure women are heard in the fight against drug resistant infections
Anyone can get an infection that is resistant to medications used to treat it, but these infections are not gender neutral.
Across the UK, women receive the majority of antibiotics prescribed in the community. They are more likely to experience recurrent infections such as UTIs – a leading source of resistant bloodstream infections. From pregnancy through to later life, repeated antibiotic exposure builds over time, which can increase the risk of a resistant infection.
Having an infection that is resistant to the medications used to treat it can be terrifying. Feeling alone and ignored in the fight against your infection only compounds this. 4 in 5 women in the UK say they have experienced not being listened to when raising health care concerns. Women have gone unheard for too long.
Women’s voices are too often missing from decisions about how we tackle the rise of these so-called ‘superbugs’. Gender shapes who gets antibiotics, how quickly health issues are taken seriously, and who shoulders unpaid caring roles. Women must be listened to, supported in their own care journeys, and fully involved in shaping the UK’s response to infections that are resistant to medications.
At AMR Action UK, we provide support for individual women, and bring their lived experience to the centre of policy and research on this issue.
We make sure the women affected are heard. We help them go from ignored to empowered.
