Antibiotic-resistant infections could kill more than 39 million people globally over the next 25 years, with related causes killing another 130 million people, a landmark study finds.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria or other pathogens evolve to the point where antibiotics are no longer effective against them, usually spurred by overuse of antibiotics in medicine, animal and crop farming. According to the new study, published in The Lancet, these “superbugs” have directly killed around a million people annually since 1990. By 2050, there could be nearly twice as many direct deaths (1.91 million) from AMR and 6.31 million AMR-related deaths each year, according to new estimates from the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) Project.
“This is really a very silent pandemic, and it’s growing,” Ahmed Ogwell, vice president of global health strategy at the UN Foundation and former acting director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), told Euronews Health. “Our attention needs to be there now.”
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Researchers analysed 520 million records from 204 countries and territories to estimate the number of deaths and disability-adjusted life years (a measure of overall disease burden) that can be attributed to or associated with AMR across 22 pathogens, 84 pathogen-drug combinations and 11 infections. They found that while AMR-related deaths fell by around 60 percent for children under 5 between 1990 and 2021, the same period saw deaths among adults 70 and over surge by over 80 percent.
The elderly aren’t alone in facing a disproportionate burden. People in South Asia, parts of southern and eastern Asia, as well as sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, are expected to be hard hit. While lower and middle-income countries contend with both AMR-related risks and a lack of access to antibiotics, even high-income countries are expected to see attributable deaths increase 53.6 percent. As Ramanan Laxminarayan of research institute One Health Trust told Euronews Health, “everyone is at risk of a bacterial infection” and increased drug resistance makes other aspects of modern medicine like surgery and chemotherapy “much more risky.”
A few key measures outlined by the study, such as better infection control, widespread immunisations, development of new antibiotics and minimising excess use, could curtail many of the projected AMR deaths. Political leaders are expected to sign a deal next week at the United Nations General Assembly to curb human deaths from AMR, although negotiations have weakened this critical step in the fight to combat a global threat.
