LETTERS: In October 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the top 10 global public health threats, the misuse and overuse of antimicrobial agents the main cause, coupled with inadequate infection prevention and control measures.
Malaysia witnessed 1,013,438 confirmed Covid-19 cases with 7,994 deaths as of July 25, 2021, leading to almost all the government's healthcare institutions fully occupied due to the increasing number of patients needing admission and intensive care, vulnerable for secondary bacterial infections and increased risk of AMR.
One of the vital efforts to counter AMR is by having continuous support on research looking for the effective agents. The Sultan Mizan Antarctic Research Foundation or the Yayasan Penyelidikan Antartika Sultan Mizan (YPASM) is one of the agencies in Malaysia that promote and support research interest on Antarctica in the fields of Policy and Governance, Biology and Physical Sciences.
YPASM has provided more than 24 polar research grants since its establishment. The recent recipient in 2020, were the researchers from the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) who embarked on a study of bioactive compounds extracted from commonly encountered Antarctic lichens against selected Gram positive and negative resistant bacteria.
This project corresponds with the precarious AMR and aims to determine the potential use of the active compound extracted from commonly encountered Antarctic's lichens in inhibiting resistant Gram positive and negative bacteria, with the hope of developing a new drug formula that is possibly effective against multidrug resistant (MDR) bacteria.
Lichens are organisms that originate from algae or cyanobacteria that have living mutually among multiple species of fungi. They have many colours, sizes, forms and are sometimes plant-like, but lichens are not plants.
They may have leafless branches, adhering to a surface like a thick coat of paint and a powder-like appearance. Different lichens have adapted to survive in some of the most extreme environments in the Antarctic, Arctic tundra, dry deserts, and rocky coasts and even inside solid rock.
In 2007, researchers from Serbia reported that extracts of lichen known as Umbilicaria crustulosa manifest antibacterial activity against the majority of species of bacteria tested. Ten years later, Polish researchers reported that lichen extracts from Antarctica demonstrated strong antimicrobial and anticancer effects.
It was suggested that cultured lichen-forming fungi can be a source of antibacterial and antiproliferative compounds. Subsequently, in 2018 divaricatic acid was successfully isolated from the Lichen Evernia mesomorpha against Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
To the best of our knowledge, these were the only literatures that support the therapeutic discoveries of antibiotic against resistant bacteria that reflects the scarcity of the research in combating emerging of AMR from Antarctic region.
Thus, there is a certain priority and needs to conduct lichens sampling from the Antarctic region as they are exceptionally resistant towards cold temperatures with restricted light and nutrient supply.
Furthermore, the mechanism of the bioactive compound inhibiting the growth of resistant bacteria can be explored too, once the therapeutic concentration is determined.
The Covid-19 pandemic poses a major challenge for this study to be pursued, however there will always be an opportunity along these difficulties as international collaboration and partnership are established to overcome issues, as this is potentially benefited the country in a new development of a therapeutic antibiotic that can de-escalate AMR, thus optimise the management of patient who has been infected with multidrug resistant organism.
This article is written in conjunction with the coming 9th Malaysian International Seminar on Antarctica (MISA): Polar Regions Matter in Our Climate Crisis, from Oct 25-27, jointly organised by the Environment and Water Ministry, UiTM, YPASM and the National Antarctic Research Centre (NARC), Malaysia.
Everyone is welcome!!!
Associate Professor Dr Fadzilah Mohd Nor @ Ghazali
Associate Professor in Medical Microbiology
Consultant Clinical Microbiologist
Faculty of Medicine, UiTM, Sg. Buloh Campus
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times