To prevent a catastrophic failure of the drugs modern medicine relies on, look to animal farming in middle-income countries
If the antibiotics we use to treat infections ever stopped working, the consequences would be catastrophic. It is estimated that the use of antibiotics adds about 20 years of life expectancy for every person worldwide (on average). As the King’s Fund put it, if we lose antibiotics, “we would lose modern medicine as we know it”. Doctors, public health experts and governments take the threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) very seriously, yet the problem appears to be getting worse.
A report from the National Audit Office in February finds that out of five domestic targets set in 2019 to tackle AMR, only one has been met – to reduce antibiotic use in food-producing animals. Others, such as the target to reduce drug-resistant infections in humans by 10%, haven’t made much progress; in fact, these infections have actually increased by 13% since 2018.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)
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