10 facts related to the Global Call for Action - From People to Leaders: Act on AMR NOW!

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global health threat that affects all aspects of life, including human and animal health, economies and ecosystems, and which could seriously jeopardize the achievement of several of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in 2030. Given below are 10 facts about the impact of AMR as well as the state of the global response to it currently.

1. Mortality

In 2019, antibiotic resistance directly caused an estimated 1.27 million deaths worldwide, with the highest burden in western sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Further, almost 5 million deaths were estimated to be associated with it (1).

2. Impact on life expectancy

Click to download social media card.At the current level of action against AMR, there would be an average loss of 1.8 years of life expectancy by 2035, with some low- and middle-income countries seeing life expectancy decline by 2.5 years (2).

3. Healthcare costs and lost productivity

AMR would cost the world $412 billion a year in healthcare costs and $443 billion in lost productivity (3).

4. Multisectoral coordination

Only 50% of countries have a functional multisectoral coordination mechanism to help prioritize, cost, implement and monitor AMR national action plans (4).

5. GDP loss and increase in poverty

According to a World Bank study, a high-impact scenario of antimicrobial resistance could cause low-income countries to lose more than 5 percent of their gross domestic product and push up to 28 million people into extreme poverty by 2050 (5).

6. Role of Communities

Multifaceted interventions that combine educational aspects with community engagement  have been shown to be more effective at improving antibiotic use compared to solely educational interventions. These approaches often involve co-designing solutions with local communities to ensure messages and strategies are contextually relevant (6).

7. Lack of access to antibiotics

7.7 million die from bacterial infections each year, many of these due to lack of access to effective antibiotics (7).

8. Lack of clean water and sanitation

Lack of access to clean water and sanitation contributes to the spread of AMR, with 2 billion people worldwide lacking access to safe drinking water (8).

9. Lack of Infection, Prevention and Control programmes

Just 35% of countries of 163 countries surveyed had national Infection, Prevention and Control (IPC) programmes based on WHO IPC core components, that are being implemented nationwide, and regularly evaluated (9).

10. Need for investments

Investing in AMR interventions, including community engagement and WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) improvements, can yield a return of $5-$7 per dollar spent (10).