Without action to protect the efficacy of antibiotics and to develop new antimicrobials, 10 million people a year would die worldwide due to drug-resistant bacteria by 2050, said a study commissioned by the British government. The report called for coordinated action worldwide to reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics, pointing to animal agriculture in particular.
A death toll of 10 million a year would be 14 times the 700,000 deaths now attributed annually to resistant bacteria “and more than cancer kills today,” says a summary of the report.
Antibiotics were the wonder drugs of the 20th Century, blunting or defeating disease and infection. When he established the review in 2014, Prime Minister David Cameron said without antibiotics, the world would be “cast back into the dark ages of medicine.”
The report calls for action in 10 areas and urges action to begin this summer on a public awareness campaign. The recommendations include a $1 billion bonus for developers of new antimicrobials and utilization of rapid diagnostics so antibiotics can be used more selectively.
And it says unnecessary use of antibiotics in livestock production should be curtailed by steps that include national targets for use. “We need to make much quicker progress on banning or restricting antibiotics that are vital for human use from being used in animals,” says a panel release.
To read the report, click here.