Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is already posing a huge health problem in India and making it particularly hard to treat diseases like Tuberculosis, childhood sepsis and malaria, has the potential to cause 10 million deaths a year worldwide by 2050 and damage to the global economy similar to the 2008-09 financial crisis, warned a new United Nations report released on Monday.
The Interagency Coordination Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (IACG), which has members from the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organisation for Animal Health, handed over its first groundbreaking report to the United Nations secretary-general on Monday. The group was formed in September 2016 with a mandate to provide practical guidance to ensure sustained and effective global action to address AMR.
Painting a gloomy scenario, the report said that by 2030, antimicrobial resistance could force up to 24 million people into extreme poverty if immediate, coordinated and ambitious action to avert a potentially disastrous drug-resistance crisis is not taken. Already, at least 700,000 people die each year due to drug-resistant diseases.
Also, the AMR poses a “formidable threat” in the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in developing countries, noting that if “superbugs” are not stopped, SDG targets will likely not be met by 2030, said the report.
Some of the major recommendations that could save thousands of lives every year and a few things in the report apply directly to India which has prepared a National action plan against AMR that focuses on six strategic priority areas, namely awareness and understanding through education, communication and training, strengthening knowledge and evidence through surveillance.
It also talks about infection prevention and control, optimised antimicrobial use in health, animals and food, AMR-related research and innovation and strengthened leadership and commitment at international, national and sub-national levels.
However, more needs to be done as the burden of infectious disease in India is high and healthcare spending is abysmally low, just 1.2% of the GDP. The country has one of the highest bacterial disease burdens in the world.
The UN report has demanded phasing out of antibiotics as animal growth promoters, emphasis on replenishing the pipeline of new antibiotics and the need for pharmaceutical companies to prioritise public good over profit.
Currently there’s a lack of market incentive to develop new antibiotics so there are recommendations for delinking the cost of research and development from the final price of the drug as one way forward.
The report also called for setting up an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) like body to tackle AMR, focusing on a ‘One Health’ approach with agencies responsible for human, animal and environment health working together to tackle AMR.
It has sought an immediate ban on the use of antibiotics on the WHO’s list of critically important medicines as growth promoters in animals. It then says that the use of other antibiotics as growth promoters should be phased out within five years.
“We are at a critical point in the fight to protect some of our most essential medicines,” WHO Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “This report makes concrete recommendations that could save thousands of lives every year,” Ghebreyesus, who is co-chairs IACG, added.
“This report reflects the depth and scope of the response needed to curb its rise and protect a century of progress in health,” said Amina Mohammed, UN deputy secretary-general and co-chair of IACG.
The WHO defines AMR as “the ability of a microorganism (like bacteria, viruses, and some parasites) to stop an antimicrobial (such as antibiotics, antivirals and antimalarials) from working against it. As a result, standard treatments become ineffective, infections persist and may spread to others.”
