Antibiotic resistance forecast to kill 39 million people by 2050

Globally, deaths directly attributable to infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria are forecast to increase to 1.91 million per year by 2050, up from a record 1.27 million per year in 2019. Overall, antibiotic resistance is expected to cause 39 million deaths between now and 2050, but more than a third of these deaths could be avoided if we take action.

Antimicrobial resistance occurs when microbes evolve the ability to resist deadly drugs, meaning they can no longer clear infections. Due to widespread use of antibiotics in agriculture and healthcare, more and more microbes are developing resistance and spreading around the world, but the extent of the problem is unclear.

To solve this problem, Eve Wool A postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle, and her colleagues sought to estimate the number of deaths each year from antibiotic resistance between 1990 and 2021. “Our estimates are based on more than 500 million records,” Wool said. “We have broad coverage both geographically and over time.”

While deaths from antibiotic resistance have been rising overall, the team found that deaths among children have been falling due to vaccinations and improved healthcare. Between 1990 and 2021, deaths from antibiotic resistance in children under the age of five fell by more than 50%, while deaths among adults over 70 increased by more than 80%.

Overall, deaths from antibiotic resistance increased from 1.06 million in 1990 to 1.27 million in 2019, before falling to 1.14 million in 2021, the team concluded. However, the declines in 2020 and 2021 are thought to be temporary as COVID-19 control measures also reduced other types of infections, rather than lasting improvements in the fight against resistance.

In the study’s “most likely” scenario for the coming decades, deaths from antibiotic resistance would rise to 1.91 million a year by 2050. If new antibiotics were developed that targeted the toughest bacteria, 11 million deaths would be avoided between now and mid-century. Even more deaths could be avoided under a “better care” scenario, in which more people had access to good health care.

The annual death toll of 1.91 million is far lower than the often-cited figure of 10 million deaths by 2050. 2016 ReviewThe projections were based on unreliable estimates and also took into account the emergence of resistance to non-antibiotic drugs in diseases such as HIV and malaria, team members said. Mohamsen Najawialso at IHME.

The new study is more thorough than previous studies. Malik de Clark At the University Hospital of Geneva in Switzerland, the model still has some major limitations. For example, it assumes that the risk of death from an antibiotic-resistant infection is the same around the world, which is not the case. “If basic healthcare infrastructure is limited, drug-resistant infections do not necessarily lead to more deaths than drug-susceptible infections,” de Clarke said.

She, too, is skeptical of the team’s predictions. “I feel like forecasting trends in antibiotic resistance is very unreliable,” DeClerk said. Resistant microbes can suddenly appear or disappear without experts really understanding the underlying mechanisms, and there are often black swan events that can’t be predicted, she said.