Thank you for the question, Mr. Thériault.
I think I may have partly answered it earlier, but I would add that the World Health Organization, the WHO, did in fact put antimicrobial resistance on its list of 10 threats to global health. When a human being or an animal is exposed to antibiotics, the so‑called “good bacteria” can develop resistance and transmit these genes to pathogens that will no longer be treatable.
Let's look at children, for example, particularly those who get frequent urinary infections because their urinary system is somewhat tangled and complex and there is reflux from the bladder to the kidneys. These children tend to be treated recurrently for urinary infections. As their care progresses, often even in their first year of life, they will be dealing with a bacterium that can't be treated with the usual orally administered antibiotics. So a urinary infection that should be easy to deal with will require hospitalization and the administration of very broad spectrum intravenous antibiotics for 10 to 14 days, and these may continue to contribute to antibiotic resistance.
It's therefore important to understand when to use antibiotics and when not to because it's a viral infection. Access to diagnostic tools, even remotely, is essential in family doctors' offices and in clinics, in order to be able to differentiate between bacterial and viral infections. Primary care doctors are very good, but they have to rely on their clinical experience. They may think it's a bacterial infection when it's only a viral infection. As I was saying, children may experience fever from 8 to 12 times a year because they will contract 8 to 12 viruses a year during their first years in a day care centre.