Five shocking facts about antibiotics misuse

Antimicrobial Resistance: The next pandemic

Modern medicine relies on antibiotics and other antimicrobial drugs. We use them to treat everything from minor illnesses to life-threatening bacterial infections, and to make surgeries and cancer treatments safer.

You may have been prescribed antibiotics to treat a bacterial infection like pneumonia, a kidney infection, or a urinary tract infection. You may have had antibiotics to prevent infection during an operation, following a cut or injury or whilst undergoing chemotherapy.

But the overuse and misuse of these precious drugs has led to the rise of drug-resistant “superbugs” which pose one of the greatest threats to human health today.

This is called antimicrobial resistance (or AMR).

1. Antimicrobial resistance is increasing

Due to the natural process of mutation and natural selection, as well as decades of overuse and misuse, bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

Just as we have seen with COVID-19, bacteria can mutate to form new variants better adapted to survive treatment.

In 2021, former Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies described antimicrobial resistance as ‘the silent pandemic growing in the shadows’.

2. Antimicrobial resistance is the third highest cause of death globally

Antimicrobial resistance is now the third leading cause of death worldwide, claiming more lives than either malaria or HIV/AIDS.

In 2019, 4.95 million deaths were associated with and 1.27 million directly attributable to antimicrobial resistance (The Lancet, 2019).

There are currently 12,000 deaths from AMR per year in the UK, but this is thought to be a significant underestimation, and the number is rising.

3. The elderly, young children and immune-compromised people are most at-risk

As we get older, we become more susceptible to lung infections like bacterial pneumonia. This means that antibiotics may need to be used more frequently.

Without effective antibiotics, infectious diseases such as pneumonia and bubonic plague will no longer be treatable, routine procedures like hip replacements will become extremely dangerous, and even a simple cut could be life-threatening.

4. This will cost the global economy $100 trillion per year by 2050

Without action, AMR is forecast to cause 10 million deaths per year by 2050 and cost the global economy $100 trillion per year.

5. The UK’s only PhD Training Programme in AMR was set up in 2018

Tackling AMR is a complex problem which needs action across all sectors.

The Medical Research Foundation runs the UK’s only multidisciplinary PhD Training Programme in AMR, at the University of Bristol.

The multi-disciplinary scheme brings together 30 PhD scientists from all sectors of science, medicine, engineering and social science to lead the UK’s AMR research of the future.

“We’re building this for the future.” – Professor Matthew Avison, Lead on the PhD programme

The Medical Research Foundation depends on generous members of the public to support and fund life-changing research.

With a gift in your Will to the Medical Research Foundation, you can play a key role in providing the science that will protect the health of future generations.

Please consider making this very special gift today: Leave a gift in your Will

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