This is not hyperbole. AMR already leads to at least 700,000 deaths every year. But the impact goes further — resistant genes in people and animals cross ecological, species and geographical borders. Progress against diseases including HIV, malaria and tuberculosis is threatened globally. In 2016, the World Health Organization reported that nearly half a million people developed drug-resistant tuberculosis. Even cancer patients are more at risk as most treatments suppress the immune system and would, along with several routine surgical operations, become too risky without effective antibiotics.
The world urgently needs a new financing model for antibiotics.
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