Warning that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is likely to claim 10 million lives worldwide annually by 2050, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has asked the health authorities in its South-East Asia region to adopt and implement high-impact interventions to check the menace.

WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia Poonam Khetrapal Singh said “Overuse and misuse of antibiotics in human and animal health accelerates the emergence and spread of bacteria resistant to it.”

The WHO warning comes close on the heels of an Indian study by environment think tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) released Wednesday that said, high doses of antibiotics, that are vital for human beings, are being used “routinely” and “indiscriminately” in crops by farmers in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab like pesticides. World Antibiotic Awareness Week is being observed globally.

Khetrapal stressed on effective monitoring of antibiotic consumption as per standard treatment guidelines, strengthening infection prevention and control (IPC) in health care facilities, and called for scaling up political leadership, advocacy and coordination to fight AMR.

“Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global crisis that threatens the future of our most precious drugs - antibiotics.

“Across the world, AMR kills an estimated 7,00,000 people annually, including 2,30,000 from multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. By 2050, unless urgent action is taken, AMR is expected to kill 10 million annually. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are responsible for a substantial proportion of the AMR burden,” Singh said.

Noting that the member states are taking decisive action and implementing national multi-sectoral action plan to address AMR, which since 2014 has been a flagship priority, the WHO regional director said the region's progress must be sustained.

“It must also be accelerated - an outcome the new WHO-convened Regional Taskforce for AMR will help achieve. In pursuit of the region's flagship priority on AMR as well as its quest to achieve universal health coverage, health authorities region-wide should adopt and implement several high-impact interventions,” Singh said.

Listing out some initiatives, she said WHO's AWaRe classification tool should be fully harnessed.

The CSE study said that “Farmers along the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi, Hisar in Haryana and Fazilka in Punjab were found to be using streptocycline, a 90:10 combination of streptomycin and tetracycline, routinely and indiscriminately in high doses in crops, including on those crops which they not approved for.

CSE Director General Sunita Narain, who was a member of the United Nations Interagency Coordination Group on AMR, said, “We strongly feel that concrete and timely action is required by central and State Governments to contain AMR, particularly from animal and environmental routes.”