Antimicrobial resistance is often framed as a technical problem for scientists and policymakers. But the truth is far simpler — and far more unsettling: the choices made in clinics, pharmacies, farms, and homes every day are helping to decide whether life-saving medicines will still work in the future.

In this episode, we unpack why AMR isn’t just a laboratory or hospital issue, but a shared societal challenge. Drawing on expert insight and real-world experience, the conversation explores how misuse of antibiotics, gaps in regulation, weak infection prevention, and limited public awareness are accelerating resistance — especially in settings where access and oversight collide.

Crucially, the episode also looks forward. From community awareness and responsible prescribing to hygiene, sanitation, and people-centred primary health care, it examines what practical action can look like — not in theory, but in everyday life.

Because when antibiotics fail, it won’t just be health systems that feel it. It will be all of us.

My guest is Dr Ali Ahmed Yahaya, Team Leader of the Antimicrobial Resistance Unit at the World Health Organization African Regional Office.