40 million could die from antibiotic resistance – ex-health chief in UK

Developing new antimicrobial drugs is financially unappealing for pharmaceutical corporations, Sally Davies has said

Antimicrobial resistance could claim 40 million lives by 2050 if left unchecked, UK Special Envoy on AMR and England’s former chief medical officer, Sally Davies, told the Observer on Sunday.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses and other types of germs become stronger than the medications used to treat them – creating so-called “superbugs.” As a result, targeted infections become difficult or impossible to treat.

Speaking to the Observer, Davies described AMR as a growing “antibiotic emergency” that threatens routine medical procedures like surgery and childbirth, and which could become life-threatening.

AMR is responsible for approximately one million deaths annually, but that figure is set to double by 2050, according to Davies. Older populations are particularly vulnerable, with mortality rates for people over 70 increasing by 80% since 1990, she added.

Despite efforts to limit antibiotic prescriptions and misuse, about 70% of all existing antibiotics are used in livestock globally, creating reservoirs of resistant bacteria.

“We’re essentially throwing antibiotics at cows and chickens and sheep as cheap alternatives to giving them growth promoters or prophylactics to prevent the spread of disease,” Davies said. “If you’ve got intensive farming where a lot of antibiotics are used or a busy hospital that has a poor sewage system, resistant bacteria can get into waterways.”

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The bacteria evolve quickly, multiplying every 20 minutes, and can travel via winds and rain, further complicating containment. “They also mutate a great deal, and if they do so in the presence of antibiotics and that mutation protects them, these strains will multiply,” Davies explained to the Observer.

“This is how pernicious this problem has become,” she said, emphasizing that the dangerous traits of AMR require both careful use of existing antibiotics and the development of new ones.

However, developing new antibiotics is financially unappealing for pharmaceutical companies, Davies explained, noting that blood pressure or cancer drugs, taken daily or over long periods, are far more profitable.

Penicillin, discovered in the late 1920s, dramatically extended the human lifespan by up to 30 years by countering most bacterial infections, but all of that progress could now be in peril.

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Antibiotic-resistant infections could claim the lives of more than 39 million people worldwide over the next 25 years, with another 169 million expected to die of related causes, according to a study published in The Lancet medical journal in September. German doctors also are warning that the world risks going back to the era before the discovery of penicillin, Bild reported in October.

The medical industry has been slow to develop new antibiotics because the research is too long and too expensive, while the profits are too low, according to Professor Yvonne Mast, microbiologist and researcher at the Leibniz Institute in Braunschweig. Only 13 new medications have been approved since 2017, but only two represent a new chemical class and can be termed innovative, according to the World Health Organization.