Clinical and Financial Burden of Global AMR

The UNGA on AMR in September 2024 provided a seminal moment to recapture the momentum generated in 2015 but sadly, due to a number of reasons it did not resonate. The diminished funding to the UN has curbed the ambition of most WHO/FAO AMR programs, and the discontinued funding of the Fleming Fund by the UK GOV signals a shift in international and international priorities. Whilst bacteria are increasingly capable of communicating with each other, the human race seems to lack such unity to produce tractable solutions - the AMR solutions are known and tractable but as a global medico-scientific community we lack vision and belief to come together to seriously address AMR. The amount spent on AMR is approx. X1000 less than that spent on arms/defence, yet the number of deaths due to AMR is 100-fold to that of international conflict – and thus, our priorities are not aligned with the risk. Ironically, and tragically, international conflict further worsens the local issues of AMR infection. Climate change and environmental pollution with plastics also exacerbate the AMR problem. The antibiotic pipeline is challenged by relentlessly increasing levels of AMR which cuts across all UN SDGs and yet, still remains largely invisible to the general public. The successful arrest of global AMR is not a knowledge-gap or logistical issue, but a financial issue – we know what the solutions are! My lecture will attempt to bring all these factors into play but also discuss possible solutions and the pivotal role that outside players will play in leading on the world-stage to tackle global AMR.