According to a study, antimicrobial resistance is a leading cause of death worldwide and is killing 3,500 people a day.
According to the most comprehensive estimate to date of the global impact of antimicrobial resistance, more than 1.2 million people died in 2019.
The analysis covering more than 200 countries and territories was published. According to it, AMR is killing more people than HIV/Aids or Malaria. The study says that hundreds of thousands of deaths are occurring due to infections that have become resistant to treatment.
Prof Chris Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington said that the new data revealed the true scale of antimicrobial resistance.
If we want to stay ahead in the race against antimicrobial resistance, we need to leverage this data to course-correct action.
For several countries and regions, and for a small number of pathogen-drug combinations in a wider range of locations, previous estimates of the health impact of AMR have been published. Estimates have not covered all locations or a broad range of pathogens.
According to the new Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (Gram) report, deaths linked to 23 pathogens and 88 pathogen-drug combinations across 204 countries and territories in 2019. Estimates of the impact of AMR were produced using more than 470m individual records obtained from systematic literature reviews, hospital systems, and other data sources.
According to the analysis, AMR was responsible for an estimated 1.27 million deaths worldwide and associated with an estimated 4.95 million deaths in 2019. Malaria and HIV/Aids are thought to have caused 860,000 and 640,000 deaths in 2019.
Young children under the age of five were found to be at particularly high risk of dying from AMR, with one in five deaths attributable to the disease occurring in children under the age of five.
An urgent need to scale up action to combat AMR is highlighted in the report, as well as immediate actions for policymakers that would help save lives and protect health systems. Enhancing the use of existing antibiotics, taking greater action to monitor and control infections, and providing more funding to develop new antibiotics and treatments are some of the things that these include.
Dame Sally Davies is the UK's special envoy on antimicrobial resistance. The families and communities that are tragically bearing the brunt of the silent AMR pandemic are behind these new numbers. We need to use this data as a warning signal to take action.
Dame Sally Davies says that antimicrobial resistance is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. The cheese scientist is Alamy.
In sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, deaths caused by AMR were estimated to be 24 deaths per 100,000 population and 22 deaths per 100,000 population respectively.
In high-income countries, there were 13 deaths per 100,000 and 56 deaths per 100,000. In the western Europe region, more than 51,000 people died as a result of the disease.
Other experts said that Covid-19 showed the importance of global commitments to infection and control measures.
Tim Jinks, the head of the drug-resistant infections programme at the Wellcome Trust, said that the Covid-19 Pandemic highlighted the importance of global collaboration.
If we are to be successful, we need to come together with a sense of urgency and global solidarity.
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