Global leaders commit to curbing antibiotic resistance by 2030

The UN agreement calls for global cooperation to protect people from superbugs that can evade antibiotic drugs.

Global leaders committed to curb the death toll from antibiotic-resistant infections by 10 per cent by 2030 during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting Thursday in New York.
The political declaration set the global agenda on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which occurs when bacteria and fungi evolve to the point where they can evade drugs.
These so-called superbugs emerge when people overuse antibiotics in medicine, and animal and crop farming, and they can leave hospitals with few options to treat infections.
AMR contributed to 4.95 million deaths in 2019, and health experts say more than 39 million people could die from antibiotic-resistant infections by 2050.
The new agreement says that by 2030, every country should implement a national action plan to combat AMR that spans the government, farming industry, and health sector. So far, 11 per cent of countries have dedicated funding in their national budgets to implement these plans, the document says.
It also set a fundraising target of $100 million (€90.2 million) to support low and middle-income countries, which are disproportionately affected by AMR, as they ramp up their national plans.
The agreement is a “strong blueprint for accelerating action against AMR,” UNGA President Philemon Yang, the former Cameroonian leader, said during the meeting, adding that “it is important to translate our declarations into concrete action”.
While lower-income countries bear the brunt of AMR, it is a growing health threat around the globe. 
In the European Union alone, AMR accounts for at least 33,000 deaths and about €1.5 billion in societal costs every year.
“We need to continue supporting each other and dedicate enough resources to tackle this serious issue,” EU health chief Stella Kyriakides said on the sidelines of the event.
The EU’s AMR budget is €62 million, she said, and next year it will launch the European Partnership on One Health AMR, which aims to support collaboration between the EU, national agencies, researchers, and funders.
The UNGA last met to discuss AMR in 2016, meaning the new agreement is the first global political action on the issue in nearly a decade.
It calls for animal farms to shift from using antimicrobials to vaccines whenever possible, for drug manufacturers and others to improve their waste management in order to prevent antibiotics from getting into the water supply, and to ensure that at least 80 per cent of countries have the ability to test for antibiotic resistance in bacterial and fungal pathogens by 2030.
Without these efforts, “AMR could unwind a hundred years of medical progress, making conditions that are easily treatable today a death sentence,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization (WHO), told journalists.
Even with the agreement, however, advocates may face challenges in strengthening the global AMR response, given the UN declaration was watered down during months of government negotiations this spring. 
For example, an earlier draft included a plan to reduce antimicrobials in animal farming by 30 per cent, but the final version includes a more vague commitment.
Barbados’ prime minister Mia Mottley, who chairs a global leadership group on AMR, told journalists that one of the agreement’s strengths is the plan to create an independent scientific advisory group that would consult with countries as they make changes to tackle AMR.
“We need everybody to make a change in this,” Mottley said, comparing the AMR threat to the climate crisis.
Mottley also emphasised the need for pharmaceutical companies to develop new antibiotic drugs. Around the turn of the century, there were more than 20 companies doing this research, she said, but that number has dwindled to four today.
“If we don’t find the money to do the research” to bring new antibiotics to the market, “then we are going to see more and more people dying,” Mottley said.