Fighting AMR Media for medical/Getty Images

How to Fight Antimicrobial Resistance

Drug-resistant microbes kill 700,000 people every year – more than three times the annual death toll from armed conflicts. A global challenge of this scale demands public-private collaboration, in which governments make up for market failures, and companies bring to bear their knowledge and experience.

ZURICH – Two weeks ago, G20 leaders committed to working together to address one of the world’s most pressing and perplexing security threats: antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – a fierce and evolving adversary against which conventional therapeutic weapons are of no use.

The threat is straightforward: bacteria and other microbes are becoming resistant to available medicines faster than new medicines are being developed. Every year, drug-resistant microbes kill about 700,000 people worldwide – more than three times the annual death toll from armed conflicts.

In 2016, a special panel commissioned by the British government predicted that, by 2050, as many as ten million more people will die from drug-resistant microbes every year. AMR now poses a clear and present danger to every person on the planet. Unless we confront it head-on, we could return to a world in which it is common for people to die from basic infections.

To continue reading, register now.

Subscribe now for unlimited access to everything PS has to offer.

Subscribe

As a registered user, you can enjoy more PS content every month – for free.

Register

https://prosyn.org/lOBQ3p2