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• Drug-resistant diseases may kill 39 million by 2050
• Human activity has rapidly accelerated spread of AMR
• Global South countries forecast to suffer most deaths

LONDON - Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), when harmful micro-organisms become resistant to medicines, could become the , with experts predicting it could lead to between 2025 and 2050.

Here is what you need to know.

What is antimicrobial resistance?

AMR is when harmful micro-organisms to drugs or medicines designed to treat an infection, virus or illness and the treatment no longer works.

Microbials are tiny organisms found in all living things. While not all bad, harmful types include bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites. Antimicrobials can kill or inhibit the growth of these organisms.

For more than a century manufactured antimicrobials, like antibiotics, have been used to help the body fight illness.

Diseases like typhoid, cholera, meningitis, chlamydia and other sexually transmitted diseases, as well as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS are all caused by harmful microbes. AMR could

The World Health Organization says nearly 5 million deaths are and in 2021 AMR was solely responsible for more than 1 million deaths.  

Children are most at risk. In 2019, one-in-five AMR deaths was

What causes antimicrobial resistance?

AMR does occur naturally via genetic mutations, but experts say human activity has the frequency of those changes.  

More people than ever are using antimicrobials, such as antibiotics. The drugs kill most harmful microbes, but some are able to survive and over time these become more numerous.

AMR also increases when drugs are taken for infections and viruses they cannot treat.

For example, antibiotics only work against infections caused by bacteria and not against viruses that cause colds, flu or COVID-19. During the pandemic, the WHO found that "extensive overuse of antibiotics" may have

While only 8% of COVID hospitalisations involved bacterial co-infections requiring antibiotics, 75% of patients were found to have

Globally, the European Commission estimates that just are used correctly.

Poor hand hygiene and infection control has also been linked to the spread of drug-resistant microbes.

What is the economic cost of antimicrobial resistance?

Alongside its fatal consequences, there is an economic cost.

According to the European Commission, drug-resistant bacteria in the EU could each year in healthcare costs and productivity losses.

By 2050, expected cumulative losses in OECD countries could reach up to

WHO data says that by 2030, AMR could push into extreme poverty and similar to the 2008-2009 financial crash.

AMR also increases the risk of 'superbugs' - microbes resistant to multiple forms of treatment.

Where are the AMR hotspots?

AMR is found all over the world, but affects low and middle-income countries the most.

Africa faces the - more than the combined toll from HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says.

The WHO estimates that unless action is taken, AMR could kill across the continent. 

Latin America and southern Asia are also expected to see a rise in AMR-related deaths, with the latter forecast to see between 2025 and 2050.

What is being done to tackle AMR? 

Creating antibiotics immune to AMR is extremely costly and not currently possible given the fast rate at which AMR is spreading. Research has focused on finding a way to extend the lifespan of existing antimicrobials.

In 2022, scientists where able to isolate and inhibit a bacterial protein known as DsbA, of drug-resistant bacteria. However, they used a chemical that cannot be used in humans.

Attention has now focused on developing a way to use inhibitors that and achieve the same effect.

In 2015, the WHO established the 'Global Antimicrobial Resistance Action Plan', which aims to by strengthening "effective sanitation, hygiene and infection prevention measures," finding new medicines and other measures.

A political declaration approved at the United Nations in September of a 10% reduction in the nearly 5 million annual deaths associated with AMR by 2030.

The declaration also called for and $100 million in 'catalytic' funding to help at least 60% of countries develop an AMR action plan by 2030.

($1 = 0.9065 euros)

(Reporting by Noah Anthony Enahoro; Editing by Jon Hemming.)