LONDON, SEPT 17 – More than 39 million people are at risk of dying from infections caused by antibiotic resistance by 2050, according to the latest estimates of a global analysis, the German News Agency (dpa) reported.
Researchers are urging urgent action to protect the world’s population from the threat posed by resistance to drugs used to treat infections. Data shows that more than 1 million people will die each year between 1990 and 2021 from infections that can no longer be treated by antibiotics.
Latest global analysis by project Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (Gram) found that the death rate due to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among children under the age of five decreased by 50 percent during this period. However, deaths among those aged 70 and over increased by more than 80 percent.
These findings are published in the journal The Lancet emphasizes the need for infection prevention measures, vaccination, minimizing inappropriate antibiotic use, and research into new antibiotics to reduce deaths from AMR by 2050. The study also estimates that as many as 1.91 million people could die directly from AMR in 2050, an increase of nearly 70 percent compared to 2022.
During the same period, the number of deaths involving the AMR bacteria is expected to increase by almost 75 percent, from 4.71 million to 8.22 million deaths each year.
AMR occurs when bacteria and diseases mutate and no longer respond to drugs designed to treat the infection.
The leader of the research, Mohsen Naghavi of the Institute for Health Metrics (IHME), University of Washington said that increasing resistance to antimicrobial drugs is a worrying global health threat.
He added that these findings show that AMR has been a global health threat for decades and that this threat is growing.
The study’s latest estimates involve 22 pathogens, 84 pathogen-drug combinations and 11 infectious conditions (including meningitis and blood infections) among populations in 204 countries and territories. The estimate was made based on various sources such as hospital data, death records and antibiotic use data.
Stein Emil Vollset from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health said that by 2050, antibiotic resistance infections could result in approximately 8 million deaths each year.
In order to avoid such a bad scenario, new strategies are needed including vaccines, new medicines, better healthcare as well as access to existing antibiotics and more effective usage guidelines, he said.
Meanwhile, Colin Brown, Deputy Director from UKHSA said that this report is a reminder that antibiotic resistance is a global threat that requires urgent action.
Researchers expect the number of deaths due to AMR to increase continuously in the coming decades, with a significant increase in the number of deaths in 2050 compared to 2021. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also described AMR as one of the major global public health and development threats. – Named
