Long-awaited report outlines how to fight antimicrobial resistance—and how to pay for it

[Gert van der Hoek]

May 18, 2016

Food producers should label meat to reflect the quantity of antibiotics used in producing it. Pharmaceutical companies should receive a $1 billion windfall for developing a drug effective against particularly dangerous resistant pathogens. And a massive global campaign should be launched to make the world more aware of the dangers of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). These are just three conclusions from a widely anticipated report on how to tackle the spread of antimicrobial resistance, which was published today. Commissioned in 2014 by U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and the Wellcome Trust, the report was led by economist Jim O’Neill, currently the Commercial Secretary to the Treasury in the United Kingdom.

Using antimicrobial drugs (not just antibiotics but also drugs against fungal, viral, or parasitic infections) invariably leads to the spread of pathogens that can tolerate them, and the problem is reaching crisis proportions, health experts widely agree. More and more pathogens are becoming resistant even to drugs seen as the last line of defense. Already, an estimated 700,000 people die every year from drug-resistant infections. (It’s important to note, however, that this estimate includes many who would have died even if their infection had been susceptible.) By 2050, drug-resistant infections could kill more people than cancer, according to the new report.

The experts call for a two-tiered approach: Lower the use of available antimicrobials and increase the supply by stimulating the development of new ones. For instance, improved hygiene, faster and better diagnostics, and new vaccines could reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics. The authors also advocate a worldwide campaign to educate people about the dangers of resistance to keep patients from demanding antimicrobial drugs and doctors from prescribing them—an idea Laxminarayan endorses.

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[Gert van der Hoek]

England’s chief medical officer warns of ‘antibiotic apocalypse’

Efficiency of antibiotics falling as deaths in EU and US hit around 50,000 annually from infections drugs can no longer treat

Thursday 19 May 2016 00.01 BST

The “antibiotic apocalypse” may already be upon us. According to Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer for England, 50,000 people are dying every year in Europe and the US from infections that antibiotics have lost the power to treat.

Davies has been at the forefront of the UK’s efforts against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and taken on a global leadership role. She has described the threatened loss of antibiotics to the world as on a par with terrorism and climate change.

As the final report of Jim O’Neill, the economist charged by the prime minister with finding solutions to the crisis, was published, Davies warned that the death toll was already high and our life spans, which once seemed to be forever lengthening, may fall.

“We are already seeing the consequences of AMR, with estimates of around 50,000 deaths per year recently in Europe and the US, due to antibiotic resistant infections, and far greater numbers worldwide,” Davies wrote in the foreword to a report by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries on antimicrobial resistance.

“The projected figures are much more worrying. It is quite possible – and perhaps even likely – that the recent era of material mortality improvements will give way to many years of material mortality worsening.”

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