Study: More than 39 million could die from antibiotic resistance by 2050
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Key takeaways:
- Without improved access to health care and antibiotics, more than 39 million people may die from antibiotic resistance by 2050.
- With improvements, more than 9 million lives can be saved by 2050.
Without improvements to access and delivery of health care, more than 39 million people may die because of antimicrobial-resistant bacterial infections between 2025 and 2050, according to new estimates.
The estimate was based on staying the course after 3 decades of more than 1 million deaths per year directly attributed to antimicrobial-resistant bacterial infections and roughly 4.7 million deaths per year associated with such infections.
“Antimicrobial medicines are one of the cornerstones of modern health care, and increasing resistance to them is a major cause for concern,” Mohsen Naghavi, MD, PhD, MPH, team leader of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) research team at the Institute of Health Metrics at the University of Washington, said in a press release.
“These findings highlight that AMR has been a significant global health threat for decades and that this threat is growing. Understanding how trends in AMR deaths have changed over time, and how they are likely to shift in the future, is vital to make informed decisions to help save lives,” he said.
A 2023 analysis found that more than 40% of infection-related deaths in the Americas in 2019 were associated with bacterial AMR. An analysis published earlier this year found that more than one-quarter of the 3.83 million infection-related deaths in Africa in 2019 were linked to AMR — more than both HIV/AIDS and malaria.
Deaths that are “attributable” to AMR refer to those directly caused by an untreatable infection, whereas deaths that are “associated” with AMR refer to drug-resistant infections that have contributed to the death of a patient with underlying conditions also responsible for their death, Naghavi and colleagues explained.
Naghavi and colleagues used 520 million individual health records from people of all ages in 204 countries and territories to analyze data on 22 pathogens, 84 pathogen-drug combinations and 11 infectious syndromes from 1990 to 2021.
Using statistical modeling based on historic trends, the researchers estimated that more than 1 million people died annually from 1990 to 2021 as a direct result of bacterial AMR.
In 1990, there were 1.06 million deaths directly due to AMR and 4.78 million deaths associated with antimicrobial resistant bacterial infections. In 2021, those numbers were 1.14 million and 4.71 million, respectively. According to the researchers wrote, the decline in deaths is likely to be a temporary reduction because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Deaths increased across five global regions by more than 10,000, during the 3-decade time period — western sub-Saharan Africa, tropical Latin America, high-income North America, Southeast Asia and South Asia — while going through an age-related shift globally.
Among children aged younger than 5 years, deaths attributed to bacterial AMR declined by 59.8% from 488,000 to 193,000 and deaths associated with bacterial AMR declined by 62.9% from 2.29 million to 840,000. At the same time, attributable deaths among adults older than 70 years increased by 89.7% to 519,000 and associated deaths increased by 81.4% to 2.16 million, according to the analysis.
Based on the historical data, the researchers estimated that, by 2050, annual deaths directly attributable to AMR will have increased to roughly 1.91 million and deaths associated with bacterial AMR will reach 8.22 million. Improving access to health care and antibiotics, however, could save as many as 92 million lives by 2050, the researchers wrote.
“The fall in deaths from sepsis and AMR among young children over the past 3 decades is an incredible achievement,” Kevin S. Ikuta, MD, MPH, health sciences assistant professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine, said in the release. “However, these findings show that while infections have become less common in young children, they have become harder to treat when they occur. Further, the threat to older people from AMR will only increase as populations age. Now is the time to act to protect people around the world from AMR.”
References:
- The Lancet: More than 39 million deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections estimated between now and 2050, suggests first global analysis. https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/lancet-more-39-million-deaths-antibiotic-resistant-infections. Published Sept. 16, 2024. Accessed Sept. 18, 2024.
- Naghavi M, et al. Lancet. 2024;doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01867-1. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01867-1/fulltext. Published Sept. 16, 2024. Accessed Sept. 18, 2024.
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