One Health Strategies for Preventing Antimicrobial-Resistant Infections: Linking Livestock, Environment, and Human Health

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is gaining importance globally as a critical health issue. It has a significant impact on humans, animals, and the environment. Due to its complex and interconnected nature, tackling it required more than individual efforts from different sectors. This chapter explores the One Health approach as a comprehensive framework that brings together human health, veterinary medicine, agriculture, and environmental management to control the AMR issue through collaborative efforts. It highlights the main drivers and transmission routes of resistance, emphasizing the role of poor stewardship, environmental contamination, and unregulated antibiotic use. The chapter also presents various practical, cross-sector strategies, including antimicrobial stewardship, infection prevention, environmental interventions, public awareness, and improved policy and regulation to combat this challenge. Special attention is given to the role of community involvement and the behavioural and social determinants responsible for antibiotics misuse, particularly in low and middle-income countries. It also underscores the pressing need for more research and robust surveillance systems to gain a deeper understanding of the problem's full scope.  However, the One Health approach offers a practical and equitable solution to protect the effectiveness of antibiotics and reduce the burden of growing threat of antibiotic-resistant infections across people, animals and the environment.