Study Finds That 39 Million People Could Die From Antibiotic-Resistant Infections in Next 25 Years

According to a study published in The Lancet, more than 39 million people worldwide could die from antibiotic-resistant infections over the next 25 years.

The study also reveals that “more than one million people died each year as a result of AMR between 1990 and 2021. The study also estimates 1.91 million people could potentially die as a direct result of AMR in 2050, an increase of almost 70% per year compared to 2022. Over the same period, the number of deaths in which AMR bacteria play a role will increase by almost 75% from 4.71 million to 8.22 million per year.”

The first study led by the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) Project, published in 2022, found that “global AMR-related deaths in 2019 were higher than those from HIV/AIDS or malaria, leading directly to 1.2 million deaths and playing a role in a further 4.95 million deaths.”

Based on historical trends, the authors of the new study found that trends in AMR deaths “underwent a major age-related shift” from 1990 to 2021, “with those among children under five years old decreasing by more than 50%” and those “among adults 70 years or older increased by more than 80%.”

Deaths due to methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) “increased the most globally, leading directly to 130,000 deaths in 2021 – more than doubling from 57,200 in 1990.”