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Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance: How to Keep Antibiotics Working for the Next Century
2024

Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance: How to Keep Antibiotics Working for the Next Century

The first WISH report on tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) was published more than a decade ago. Section 1 of this report reviews progress on recommended actions in the five areas identified by the 2013 report.
Section 2 of the report considers opportunities for action in three areas, illustrated by case studies from around the world.
  1. Global citizen engagement: The world’s population needs to understand the issue and take action to be part of the solution. In particular, efforts must be made with those who regularly prescribe antibiotics in their work.
  2. Translational science: The last decade has seen exciting developments in point-of-care testing, vaccines in aquaculture and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in discovering new antibiotics. These advances need to be put into action more universally in tackling AMR.
  3. Policy and regulation: Incentives for research and development (R&D), regulations, access approaches and national action plans are important tools in supporting the right action.
Section 3 of the report takes stock of what has emerged from the United Nations (UN) General Assembly High-Level Meeting on tackling AMR. It welcomes the Political Declaration, whilst recognizing that action needs to go further and faster. To that end it makes six recommendations. Recommendation 1 International organizations should put into action the 2024 UN AMR high-level meeting recommendation to establish an independent body to advise on the evidence and inform action. This panel will identify gaps in the current evidence on AMR, assess emerging and future risks of AMR, and inform cost-effective options for mitigating AMR, including global targets.
Recommendation 2 Countries and international bodies should engage their citizens in tackling AMR, with clear plans to do so by 2028. Recommendation 3 Governments should give more priority to water and sanitation in addressing AMR. This includes increasing investment in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) to reduce infections and environmental microbe exposure, and the development of national programs to surveil antibiotic residues, resistance genes and resistant pathogens in the water supply and factory effluent. Recommendation 4 By 2027, high-income countries should commit to only prescribing antibiotics (with a few defined exceptions) when need is confirmed by a diagnostic test. Low- and middle-income countries should achieve this by 2030. Recommendation 5 By 2026, all high-income countries should have introduced pull incentives for the development of new antimicrobials, to deliver on global antibiotic priorities. Recommendation 6 Global health organizations should use the forthcoming centenary of the discovery of penicillin (2028) to accelerate progress on the AMR agenda. We have four years before the centenary of the discovery of penicillin (2028) to accelerate progress on tackling AMR, so that we can keep antibiotics working for the next 100 years.

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Prof. Lord Ara Darzi

Lord Darzi is Co-Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London and holds the Paul Hamlyn Chair of Surgery. He is a Consultant Surgeon at Imperial College NHS Trust and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, Chair of the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative and Chair of the Pre-emptive Health and Medicine Initiative at Flagship Pioneering. In his role as Executive Chair of the Fleming Centre Initiative—a partnership between Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College London—Lord Darzi is spearheading the development of The Fleming Initiative, aimed at leading a global movement to combat antimicrobial resistance. In 2002, Lord Darzi was knighted for his services to medicine and surgery, introduced as Lord Darzi of Denham to the UK’s House of Lords in 2007, been a member of His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council since 2009 and awarded the Order of Merit in 2016. Lord Darzi was awarded the Qatari Sash of Independence in 2014, is the Executive Chair of the World Innovation Summit for Health, Vice-Chair of the Board of Governors of Sidra Medicine, an International Advisory Panel Member for Hamad Healthcare Quality Institute and Member of the Advisory Board for the Qatar Foundation.

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Prof. Dame Sally Davies

Dame Sally Davies was appointed as the United Kingdom (UK) Government’s Special Envoy on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in 2019. She is also the 40th Master of Trinity College in Cambridge University. Dame Sally was the Chief Medical Officer for England and Senior Medical Advisor to the UK Government from 2011-2019. She is a leading figure in global health, having served as a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Executive Board 2014-2016, and as co-convener of the United Nations Inter-Agency Co-ordination Group (IACG) on AMR, reporting in 2019. In November 2020, Dame Sally was announced as a member of the new UN Global Leaders Group on AMR, serving alongside Heads of State, Ministers and prominent figures from around the world to advocate for action on AMR. In the 2020 New Year Honours, Dame Sally became the second woman (and the first outside the Royal family) to be appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) for services to public health and research, having received her Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2009.

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