The World Health Organization (WHO) today said it will call on world leaders to take "decisive action" against the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) at next week's United Nations High-Level Meeting on AMR.
The meeting, which will be held during the 79th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA79), aims to set countries on a path toward a 10% reduction in AMR deaths by 2023 with a political declaration that will outline goals and commitments. The WHO says that without decisive action, drug-resistant bacteria will cause even more global suffering. A study this week in The Lancet projected that AMR could cause more than 39 million deaths by 2050 if it's not adequately addressed.
"Antimicrobial resistance threatens a century of medical progress and could return us to the pre-antibiotic era, where infections that are treatable today could become a death sentence," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said in a press release. "This is a threat for all countries at all income levels, which is why a strong, accelerated and well-coordinated global response is needed urgently."
AMR will be among several health topics discussed at UNGA79, along with the health impact of climate change, universal health coverage, and pandemic preparedness and response.
"Strong health systems, equitable access to health services, and robust pandemic preparedness are vital for a safer and healthier world," Tedros said.
GARDP gets funding boost
In other news announced ahead of the UN High-Level Meeting on AMR, the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) said today that 10 public and private funders have pledged $66 million to support its efforts to develop new treatments for drug-resistant infections.
The funding will help GARDP pursue its strategy of partnering with drugmakers to accelerate the development of antibiotics targeting WHO priority pathogens and ensure that those antibiotics are accessible in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Many LMICs are seeing rising mortality from drug-resistant infections yet have limited or no access to the few new antibiotics that can treat those infections.
Antimicrobial resistance threatens a century of medical progress and could return us to the pre-antibiotic era, where infections that are treatable today could become a death sentence.
An example of this strategy is the agreements that GARDP has signed with Venatorx and Innoviva to complete the development of cefepime-taniborbactam (an investigational beta-lactam/beta-lactamase inhibitor combination for multidrug-resistant infections) and zoliflodacin (a novel antibiotic for gonorrhea). These agreements, under which GARDP has acquired the rights to register and commercialize the antibiotics in LMICs, have enabled the companies to pursue access on a much wider scale than they could on their own.
"On the cusp of the UN High Level Meeting on AMR, these commitments allow us to ramp up urgently needed research and development and expand our ambitions on better ensuring access to life-saving antibiotics," GARDP executive director Manica Balasegaram, MRCP, MSc, said in a press release.
The funders include six governments (Germany, Japan, Monaco, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom), the European Union Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Agency, the South African Medical Research Council, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and British pharmaceutical company GSK.
"GSK and GARDP share a common vision of improving equitable responsible access to medicines for people living in lower-income countries," said GSK CEO Emma Walmsley. "Building on GSK's long-standing commitment to tackling AMR and track record to improve access to vaccines and medicines, this work will concentrate on fostering a much needed, robust AMR access approach at global, regional and national levels."
