Between 1990 and 2021, more than a million people worldwide died each year due to antibiotic resistance, and more than 39 million could die from antibiotic-resistant infections over the next 25 years, according to a global analysis published in The Lancet.
Future deaths from antibiotic resistance are expected to be highest in South Asia, particularly in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where a total of 11.8 million deaths directly due to resistance are projected between 2025 and 2050, according to a collaboration of researchers forming the Global Research on Antibiotic Resistance (GRAM) project.
Antibiotic, or antimicrobial, resistance occurs when drugs designed to kill infectious bacteria and fungi are rendered ineffective because the bacteria have evolved and developed an ability to overcome these drugs.
The researchers said deaths from antibiotic resistance will also be high in other parts of South and East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Additionally, trends between 1990 and 2021 suggest that among people aged 70 and older, deaths caused by antibiotic resistance have increased by more than 80%, and will continue to affect older people more in the years to come, the authors said.
Over the same period, deaths from antibiotic resistance in children under five fell by more than 50%, they found.
“The decline in deaths from sepsis (a bloodstream infection) and antibiotic resistance in young children over the past three decades is an incredible achievement. However, these results show that while infections have become less common in young children, they have become harder to treat when they do occur.”said author Kevin Ikuta, affiliate professor at the Institute of Health Metrics (IHME), University of Washington, USA, one of the GRAM project collaborators.
