A global steering group has warned against ignoring the growing risk of antimicrobial resistance, which could cause an unprecedented health and economic catastrophe.
The Global Leadership Group on Antimicrobial Resistance wrote in a report published yesterday, Thursday, that “the world faces an opportunity to act with strength and urgency on what the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance requires.”
The report aims to urge world leaders, who are supposed to discuss this health issue in New York next September, to act quickly.
Resistance to antimicrobials, namely antibiotics, antifungals and antiparasitics, has reached significant levels, as a result of the extensive use of these products that treat humans, animals or are used in food.
The report notes that there is converging evidence that “changes in the environment caused by the climate crisis are increasing the spread of infectious diseases, such as infections that are potentially drug-resistant.”
resistance
Microbes that are not completely eliminated by a particular substance may become resistant to that substance, leading to a gradual reduction in the stock of drugs available to treat infections.
The report indicates that antimicrobial resistance is one of the leading causes of death around the world, killing 1.27 million people annually, including one in five children under the age of five, especially in low- and middle-income countries.
Antimicrobial resistance, if out of control, could reduce life expectancy by 1.8 years by 2035, and could incur unprecedented health expenditures and economic losses.
Within a decade, antimicrobial resistance will cost the world $412 billion annually in additional health care expenditures and $443 billion annually in lost workforce productivity, according to an economic impact study commissioned by the Global Leadership Group.
Any effective measures against this issue are expected to cost $46 billion annually on average, while generating up to $13 for every dollar spent by 2050, according to the study.
From local to global
“We have the tools to mitigate the antimicrobial resistance crisis, and this data portends a devastating future if bolder action is not taken immediately,” said Global Leaders Group President Mia Amor Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados.
She stresses that “commitment to confronting antimicrobial resistance should be personal, local, national and global.”
The working group offers suggestions regarding raising funding, especially from international financial institutions, and ways to overcome obstacles to searching for and manufacturing new effective medicines.
The working group set numerical goals that it considers the only way to push the various parties to move effectively.
Among these goals, which must be achieved by 2030, are to reduce the number of deaths caused by bacterial antimicrobial resistance worldwide by 10%, and to ensure that human consumption of antibiotics from a group called ACCESS is reduced by 80% by 2030.
This group consists of antibiotics used to treat common infections (such as ear infections), and carries a limited risk of creating and spreading antimicrobial resistance, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
Among the goals is also to reduce the amount of antimicrobials used in the global agricultural food system by 30 to 50% compared to what is currently approved.
The group proposes that, by 2030, the use of antimicrobials in human and animal medicine for non-veterinary medical purposes, or in plant production and agri-food systems for purposes not related to plant health, should be halted.
#Warnings #danger #antimicrobial #resistance
