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Richard Sullivan: The numbers look bad for antimicrobial resistance

Richard Sullivan/LinkedIn

Jan 14, 2025, 06:50

Richard Sullivan: The numbers look bad for antimicrobial resistance

Richard Sullivan, Professor of Cancer and Global Health at King’s College London, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“The numbers look bad for antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Our best estimates suggest that some 4-5 million deaths in 2021 were associated with bacterial AMR.

Over the last three years, AMR deaths have increased by around 50% in children and 80% in adults. Among gram-negative bacteria, resistance to carbapenems increased more than any other antibiotic class, rising from 619,000 associated deaths in 1990 to 1·03 million associated deaths in 2021.

The good news is that the 97th UN General Assembly managed in September 2024 to get a reasonable AMR declaration across the line.

The bad news is that there is little recognition of the complexity of achieving national plans in conflict-impact countries which cover nearly a third of the world’s population.

Human mobility due to conflict creates huge challenges to surveillance and many conflict-related factors remain underexplored.

The Deceleration is a positive step, but it rests too heavily on achieving control by focusing on current orthodoxies – antibiotic stewardship, a focus on permissive demographically large countries.

The spread of conflict; the usage of modern weapons contaminating the environment, the degrading of clinical care, and the destruction of ecosystems create new systemic AMR pathways.

Heterodox R&D strategies are needed to address this securitized multi-dimensional threat.”

Richard Sullivan

Richard Sullivan is a Professor of Cancer and Global Health at King’s College London, where he directs the King’s Institute of Cancer Policy and co-directs the Conflict and Health Research Group. His research spans from global cancer studies to conflict and health, with a focus on capacity building in conflict zones, humanitarian medicine, women’s health, and digital innovation in surgery.