Greater access to antibiotics is essential for curbing drug resistance

Greater access to antibiotics is essential for curbing drug resistance

The writer is founder and director of the One Health Trust in Washington, a senior research scholar at Princeton University, and board chair at the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership in Geneva

As the latest wave of Covid-19 wanes, the hidden pandemic of antibiotic-resistant infections is becoming apparent. Recent estimates indicate that about 1.3mn deaths each year are caused by drug-resistant infections — more than the toll from any infectious disease, apart from Covid-19 and tuberculosis.

These deaths reflect a growing resistance, and lack of access, to affordable and effective antibiotics, especially for people living in low- and middle-income countries.

There is now growing — if still grossly inadequate — attention being paid to preventing resistance and developing new drugs. But the international response has largely ignored the matter of access to them, to the detriment of immediate health needs and the long-term effort to curb drug-resistant infections.

A team of Norwegian and US researchers (including me) recently showed that nearly 40 per cent of new antibiotics launched between 1999 and 2014 were registered for sale in fewer than 10 countries.

That is an enormous missed opportunity for antibiotic developers and for patients in the more than 185 countries where the drugs were not