FACTS:

World Health Organization (WHO) released a report on April 2014 entitled Antimicrobial
resistance: global report on surveillance, and revealed that antimicrobial resistance is
occurring across many different infectious agents and in all regions in the world
WHO noted that antibiotic resistance or when bacteria change so antibiotics no longer
work to treat infections is now a major threat to public health, with the potential to
affect anyone, of any age, in any country.
The report also showed that antibiotic resistance causes people to be sick for longer and
increases the risk of death.
WHO is calling attention to the need to develop new diagnostics, antibiotics and other
tools to allow healthcare professionals to stay ahead of emerging resistance.
about 700,000 people die every year from drug resistant strains of common bacterial
infections, HIV, TB and malaria
Nearly 200,000 people die every year from multidrug-resistant and extremely drug
resistant tuberculosis (TB) alone
In India, antibiotic-resistant neonatal infections cause the deaths of nearly 60,000 new
borns each year
In the US alone, more than two million infections a year are caused by bacteria that are
resistant to at least first-line antibiotic treatments costing the US health system 20 billion
USD in excess costs each year

WHY TACKLING AMR IS ESSENTIAL:

Drug-resistant infections already cost too many lives today

The extensive and inappropriate use of antibiotics in humans and animals is
common in some countries of the Western Pacific region. The misuse of antibiotics
becomes a greater threat when combined with the forces of globalization, - WHO
Regional Director for the Western Pacific Shin Young-Soo
This challenge will only get worse in the future if we do not act now
unless action is taken, the burden of deaths from AMR could balloon to 10 million
lives each year by 2050, at a cumulative cost to global economic output of 100 trillion
USD
On this basis, by 2050, the death toll could be a staggering one person every three
seconds
Without urgent, coordinated action by stakeholders, the world is headed for a
post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries which have been
treatable for decades can once again kill, - Keiji Fukuda, WHO Assistant Director-
General for Health Security
Governments can afford to cover the cost of addressing AMR by allocating resources
from existing health and economic development budgets: committing funds to AMR
now will reduce the amount it costs later when it develops into an even bigger crisis,
which will inevitably fall to governments
SOURCES:

J ONeill, Review on Antimicrobial Resistance 2014

www.who.int