E-Paper
Superbugs threaten lives and may cost $2 trillion a year by 2050: Report
According to the study, the annual global healthcare costs of treating antimicrobial resistance (AMR) could rise by nearly $176 billion.
Bacteria with antimicrobial resistance can cause millions of deaths worldwide and cost GDP losses in the global economy. According to a report by The Guardian, these superbugs could cost the global economy nearly $2 trillion annually by 2050. A study funded by the UK government showed that increased rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) could lead to annual losses of $1.7tn trillion over the next quarter of a century.
The study named ‘Forecasting the Fallout from AMR: Economic Impacts of Antimicrobial Resistance in Humans’ highlighted that the economies hardest hit will be the US, UK and EU economies.
In this scenario, funding cuts in research and development related to superbugs can have dire consequences. On Thursday, the UK government announced it would cut funding for the Fleming Fund, which supports the fight against AMR in low and middle-income countries. Meanwhile, the Trump administration confirmed $9 billion in cuts to its foreign aid spending, and several European nations have also scaled back their overseas aid commitments, reported The Guardian.
Talking to The Guardian, Anthony McDonnell, the lead author of the study and research fellow at the Centre for Global Development, said: "When we conducted our research on the economic impacts of antimicrobial resistance, it was anticipated that resistance rates would continue to follow historical trends."
He also highlighted that even the countries that are successful in keeping AMR rates under control cannot afford to be complacent in their approach. Unless their programmes are excluded from aid cuts, AMR rates worldwide will likely increase, he added.
According to the study, the cost of treating resistant infection per hospital admission varies significantly, ranging from $100 to $30,000, depending on a country’s income level and the type of infection. In this context, the annual global healthcare costs of treating antimicrobial resistance (AMR) could rise by nearly $176 billion.
Responding to the findings, Dr Mohsen Naghavi, a professor of health metrics at Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told The Guardian that the threat of AMR is significantly increasing and “without immediate action from all stakeholders, the medicines we have access to now could stop working.”
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), India accounts for just 1% of the global antibacterial research and development pipeline, while 84% of such research is concentrated in high-income countries.
