Keep antibiotics working: A patient’s perspective

With described video

Transcript

Transcript - Keep antibiotics working: A patient's perspective

(Cancer survivor Vinesha Ramasamy appears on screen)

My name is Vinesha and I am a cancer survivor.

My diagnosis of cancer started when I was 15.

(There is a photograph of Vinesha when she was a teenager, followed by video of Vinesha wearing a cast on her left leg)

It showed up in my leg and it was a really big tumour. So it was osteo-sarcoma, which is bone cancer.

It just involved a lot of appointments and chemotherapy, and a lot of blood transfusions and ended up, you know, changing my life forever.

(Vinesha is on camera, in an interview setting)

Antibiotics was a huge part of saving my life because no matter how many great doctors I had, or great complex chemo drugs I had, I wouldn't have been able to access or continue with any of that if I didn’t get over infections with antibiotics.

And so there could have been all this great, you know breakthroughs for me, but without core antibiotics for my infections and my illnesses, I couldn't have used any of it. So it's really, really important.

(Vinesha and her friends are gathered around a piano and are having an animated conversation)

Basically, what happens when society as a whole uses too much antibiotics, these bugs get resistant to the drugs and just get stronger and stronger.

(Vinesha is on camera in an interview setting)

Antibiotics really save lives of people that are hanging in the balance—cancer patients and other types of people.

And it I guess it's very, very important that they're available to use for lots of years to come, and just to use them appropriately and to make sure you take what's given to you and not share it, and to use it in moderation.

(Text on screen)

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