As many as 28 million people would be pushed into poverty and global livestock production could fall by up to 7.5 percent if resistant bacteria overwhelm the healing powers of antibiotics, says the World Bank. The economic impact would be “similar to — and likely worse than — that caused by the 2008 financial crisis,” but without hope of a recovery, says the Bank.
“Unchecked AMR [antimicrobial resistance] may cause major economic damage at community, country, regional and global levels,” says the report, “Drug-resistant infections: A threat to our economic future.” The report presented two scenarios, one of low impact from AMR and one with broad impact. Under the “optimistic” scenario, annual losses would exceed $1 trillion after 2030. Impact on global GDP would reach $3.4 trillion annually by 2030 under the high-impact scenario.
“The goal of eliminating poverty by 2030 would be harder to reach,” said the report, estimating that up to 24 million people would be pushed into poverty. “Most of the increase in the number of extremely poor people would occur in low-income countries.” By 2050, the decline in livestock production could range from 2.6-7.5 percent. “Livestock production in low-income countries would decline the most, with as much as an 11 percent loss in the high AMR impact scenario.”
At that scale of potential loss, the cost of steps to preserve the efficacy of antibiotics “is a hard-to-resist investment opportunity,” said the report. A “vigorous” AMR containment program in low- and middle-income countries could cost $200 billion a year, says the report.