Antimicrobial Resistance impacts everyone

By the bioMérieux Editors | Reading time: 2 min

PUBLICATION DATE: JULY 16, 2024

When her daughter was diagnosed with leukemia, Menia didn’t know she would also need to worry about Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). Here is her story.

Menia Koukougianni is the mother of two. When her daughter was diagnosed with leukemia, it was of course terrible news for all the family. She started treatment at the pediatric oncology hospital close to their home, in Greece. After a month and a half, Menia’s daughter was diagnosed with a nosocomial infection due to multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The doctors interrupted her cancer treatment, and started giving her antibiotics to fight the infection.

For Menia, this was difficult to understand. She knew that children could easily pick up infections at school or in the community, but she had never imagined that hospitals could also be dangerous places. To learn that her daughter got an infection while she was in hospital, and that this meant delaying the cancer treatment, was a true shock, and the cause of a lot of stress.

The little girl received several rounds of antibiotics, none of which seemed to work. When the doctors started to talk about antimicrobial resistance, this also came as a surprise. Menia didn’t know about resistance, and didn’t know where to find information. It was only after two months that the infection was defeated, and that the cancer treatment could start again.

Fortunately, Menia’s daughter survived her childhood cancer. After two years of treatment, she was fine. Her parents, however, were still worried about possible late effects of the different antibiotics she had taken.

Menia Koukougianni

This experience showed Menia that she knew very little about infections, treatment options and AMR, and that it would have been helpful to have information when she needed it. She felt that it was her duty to help other families in the same situation to « fill the gaps » and find support. It also made her realize that too many children receiving cancer treatment suffered from infections, especially in Greek hospitals, and that something had to be done.

« Children with cancer are actually dying not from cancer but from infections that antibiotics can not treat. This is not acceptable » said Menia.

Antimicrobial resistance is a serious threat to patient health around the world. It is estimated that bacterial AMR contributes to the deaths of at least 4.95 million people each year. The leading pathogens associated with this figure are Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. As existing antibiotics become less effective, healthcare-associated infections (HAI) will become more difficult to treat, placing patients like Menia’s daughter at greater risk.

Her personal experience inspired Menia Koukougianni to co-found NGO Karkinaki, Awareness for Childhood and Adolescent Cancer. One of the focuses of the NGO is to prevent and fight infections that endanger the lives of children hospitalized for cancer treatment. It is a member of Health First Europe’s AMR Patient Group.

Implementing good hand hygiene in hospitals as a tool against infections is one of Karkinaki’s areas of action. Promoting appropriate use of antibiotics, with an emphasis on the key role of diagnostics, is another.

Now an active patient advocate for AMR, Menia is convinced that diagnostics impact the fight against AMR, and make a difference in the lives of patients and families like hers. IVD companies, patient organizations and other stakeholders need to work together to increase awareness on AMR and improve public health.