Global coordination needed to tackle AMR: report

A report setting out the importance of improved infection prevention, control, and surveillance in combating the global rise of drug-resistant infections, was published on Tuesday.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), especially resistance to antibiotics, is a growing global problem, according to the report from the independent Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, which calls for fundamental changes to better prevent and monitor the spread of drug-resistant infections globally.

The report, "Infection prevention, surveillance and control: limiting the development and spread of drug resistance," is the last in a series of interim reports by the Review, before it presents its final recommendations to the British prime minister in May, and will set out a package of actions to tackle drug-resistant infections globally.

It makes the case that many countries made the greatest progress in tackling infectious diseases in the 19th century, long before modern antimicrobial drugs were available, by focussing on disease prevention and investing in public sanitation infrastructure.

Such an approach is still vital today, said the report. Yet the focus on prevention has weakened over recent decades, and public spending has shifted towards treatment as cheap and effective antimicrobial drugs have become more and more available, including antibiotics.

But these drugs are losing their effectiveness because over time microbes evolve to resist them. For example, 500,000 people suffer from multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis today and 200,000 of them die every year.

Report chairman Lord Jim O'Neill told Xinhua that solving anti-microbial resistance was "crucial for the future of the world's seven billion people.

"If we don't find a solution for policymakers to implement by 2050, 10 million people a year around the world are going to be dying. Without a solution, over 100 trillion U.S. dollars of economic output will be lost. That is bigger than the size of the world economy today," he said.

China and the United Kingdom have already supported the project through the UK-China AMR Partnership Initiative whose objective is to deliver significant research funding for internationally competitive and innovative collaborative projects between scientists from China and the United Kingdom to enable the pursuit of shared research interests.

Lord O'Neill said he was seeking a 2-billion-dollar global innovation fund. He added: "The UK and Chinese governments have both announced a funding of 50 million pounds (about 71 million U.S. dollars) each to get that fund going -- it's a great sign of Anglo-Chinese cooperation.

O'Neill added: "We are pretty hopeful that G20 leaders as well as their finance leaders under Chinese leadership of the G20 in September can go forward with a number of our recommendations. In parallel with that, we are pushing for UN high level agreements on compliance, surveillance, and quite possibly agricultural reduction targets later this year."

In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) at its annual meeting in Geneva backed a plan to tackle AMR, which it labelled the "most urgent drug resistance trend."

The WHO also stated: "AMR is occurring everywhere in the world, compromising our ability to treat infectious diseases, as well as undermining many other advances in health and medicine." Endit