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Antimicrobial resistance could kill 40 million by 2050 unless governments respond effectively
Antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, happens when pathogenic organisms change over time and develop defenses to the medicines we have. It makes infections harder to treat and increases the risk of disease spread. Thats the background. The issue is that AMR is behind a lot of human deaths, and is predicted to kill millions more in the future.
In what its authors say is the first comprehensive estimate of the AMR burden, meaning the number of total excess deaths, this far into the future, AMR is projected to pose an important global health threat over the coming decades. A professor of molecular microbiology recently predicted that fungi could be behind the next global pandemic. Maybe it will. The question is, how will we respond?
Researchers forecast AMR deaths 25 years into the future
To prepare humanity to make informed decisions going forward, the researchers have been crunching the numbers on how many people died as a result of, or in a way that was in some way associated with, antimicrobial resistance between 1990 and 2019. They’ve also been using that data to make predictions about how those numbers are likely to change over the coming years.
They have shown that globally, deaths associated with AMR went up only a little bit between 1990 and 2019. In other words, it didnt become a much bigger problem during that two-decade period.
However, they predict that deaths from AMR will increase much more dramatically by 2050 if measures arent put in place to combat it, especially among older groups.
Specifically, they predict that annual deaths attributable to AMR globally will reach nearly 2 million by 2050. Meanwhile, deaths associated with AMR will be over 8 million per year.
This means that between now and 2050 over the next 25 years a total of 39.1 million people will die as a direct result of antimicrobial resistance. Up to 196 million deaths will be associated, in some way, with AMR. Thats according to the scientists predictions, anyway.
To put it into perspective, that’s more than half of the population of the United States, and only a bit less than the total population of Brazil.
How to prevent such a sharp increase in deaths connected to antimicrobial resistance
The scientists predict that the biggest AMR burden will be borne by people in Asia, southeast Asia, east Asia, Oceania, and sub-Saharan Africa. It’s often those living in less technologically and economically developed countries who bear the greatest burden. In many cases, this is part of the world’s colonial legacy. It also has to do with the lack of reparations paid by former colonizers to former colonies.
Among very young people, including in poorer areas, the burden is likely to decrease, according to their projections. However, among people over 70, the increase in AMR deaths is predicted to be 146%.
To minimize potential damages, the scientists advocate developing and rolling out new vaccines, improving the quality of health care in hospitals and health centers, improving access to antibiotics, and promoting efforts to make sure antibiotics are used responsibly and effectively.
New prevention efforts to address AMR must remain a priority for global health policymakers. Only then we will collectively be able to avert large numbers of deaths over the next 25 years.
They estimate that as many as 92 million deaths could be averted between 2025 and 2050, through better care of severe infections and improved access to antibiotics.
