UN urged to strengthen global response to antimicrobial resistance crisis

2024-08-19

Former members of the UN's Interagency Coordination Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (IACG-AMR) have penned an open letter to Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, expressing grave concern over the lack of coordinated action to address the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

The letter, signed by prominent experts including Professor Otto Cars, Martha Gyansa-Lutterodt, and Professor Stefan Swartling Peterson, calls for urgent steps to mobilize the entire UN system against this complex, multi-dimensional challenge that jeopardizes many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

AMR, which occurs when microbes evolve to resist the effects of antimicrobial medications, claimed 1.27 million lives in 2019 alone, with one-fifth of these deaths being children under five. The crisis not only threatens to reverse decades of progress in global public health but also impacts modern medicine’s ability to treat common infections.

Falling short of IACG recommendations

The IACG-AMR, established following the 2016 UN General Assembly’s political declaration on AMR, delivered its report “No Time to Wait: Securing the future from Drug-resistant Infections” in 2019. The report outlined recommendations in five key areas: accelerating progress in countries, innovating for the future, collaborating effectively, investing sustainably, and strengthening accountability and global governance.

Despite numerous initiatives launched since then, the letter highlights significant gaps in all these areas. Only 11% of countries have budgeted for implementing national AMR action plans, and the pipeline for new antibiotics remains critically inadequate. Moreover, financial commitments made in the 2016 declaration have not been fulfilled, and proposed governance structures, such as the Independent Panel on Evidence for Action against AMR, have yet to materialize.

Need for scaling up response

The authors stress the urgent need to make AMR a priority issue that spans across sustainable development areas and to galvanize a coordinated, whole-of-UN response. They reference the UN Secretary-General’s 2019 call for Member States to urgently support and invest in scaling up AMR responses at national, regional, and global levels, including the integration of AMR into the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework.

As the world prepares for the upcoming UN High-Level Meeting on AMR in September 2024, this letter serves as a stark reminder of the critical need for immediate and comprehensive action. The authors emphasize that the current global response to AMR is vastly insufficient to manage this crisis, urging Deputy Secretary-General Mohammed to take decisive steps in facilitating a framework that strengthens and broadens collaboration on AMR among UN agencies.