The rise of antibiotic resistance is leading to a future of untreatable bacterial infections and with that, the possibility of untreatable bacterial infectious outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics. Antibiotics are one of the tools that we currently have to treat such outbreaks so with their effectiveness declining, the impact of such infectious outbreaks would become more severe. With few new drugs entering the market, it’s imperative that we use our current stocks of antibiotics wisely. This is simply because more antibiotic use leads to more antibiotic resistance.
Despite the finest efforts by medical and health policy makers and communities to control the antibiotic resistance problem, the issue has reached a critical tipping point and calls for more to be done have been voiced by respected organisations. These calls include those from the WHO and CDC and respected individuals such as Chief UK Science Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, who has suggested antibiotic resistance be placed above the issue of terrorism on national risk registers. Increasingly, the language surrounding antibiotic resistance is reminiscent of that used for natural disasters and it is clear that the issue is no longer a "business as usual problem". Given the current state of the antibiotic resistance problem and the likely near future of untreatable bacterial infections, this talk suggests an alternative and novel policy perspective.
With this is mind, this talk proposes to make antibiotic resistance a broader issue and to rebrand it as a disaster risk problem and to engage the expertise of emergency managers. When we think of natural disasters, we often think of tsunami, wild fires or floods etc, however, infectious diseases are just as much a risk to communities as any other natural disaster. Governments and disaster policy makers across the world use the Emergency Risk Management process in the management of and preparation for natural disasters. This process is a systematic method that through engagement with multiple stakeholders, identifies, analyses, evaluates and treats risks and takes an iterative approach with well-defined activities that lead to implementation of risk-treatment strategies tailored to a specific community’s risk profile. This policy and practice framework is an excellent mechanism for reaching out to communities and communicating complex messages.
Rebranding antibiotic resistance as a disaster risk problem has the following benefits:

1. The Community understands disasters. A rebranding of the issue will give the antibiotic resistance issue the weight it deserves.
2. The disaster risk framework will provide new ideas and innovations in dealing with the antibiotic resistance problem (that would be discussed in our article).
3. The framework has been successfully used to communicate and prepare communities for natural disasters. These channels will be of great benefit to communicating the gravity of antibiotic resistance and associated risk mitigation strategies to the Community.