Resistance is already making drugs less effective at treating illnesses like tuberculosis, and the report said the problem could kill 10 million people a year by 2050, the equivalent of 1 person every 3 seconds.
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The cost of the measures was estimated to be $40 billion (35.6 billion euros) over ten years – far less than the cost if the growing problem is not addressed.
With overuse, it leaves people more vulnerable to superbugs like MRSA.
Lord Jim O’Neill, former chairman of Goldman Sachs has set out his final report on the global challenge of resistance to commonly used drugs.
Other suggestions in Lord O’Neill’s report include reducing the use of drugs in farming and faster progress on banning or restricting antibiotics from being used in animals if they are vital for human health.
As well as being a threat to health, AMR is also a threat to the global economy, he said as he called on finance ministries to come together to agree a way to tackle the threat.
In the agricultural sector, it would be best to limit the use of antimicrobials only when highly needed. Those that already spend research dollars on their own antibiotic research would either be exempt or could deduct that existing investment from the total.
Professor Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer for England, said “We must work with our worldwide partners to ensure global action”, warning that failure to act could lead to the number of deaths due to infection, now at 7%, returning to the pre-antibiotics level of 40%.
“Introducing a tax on antibiotics could be part of the solution, but only if the funds raised were recycled to help cover the costs farmers will incur in adapting their systems to reduce illness in their animals and the need for antibiotics”. Battle to maintain the efficacy of antibiotics requires “global focus ” RUMA, which works independently with organisations involved in all stages of the animal food chain from “farm to fork’, supports the report’s main findings, saying the battle to maintain the efficacy of antibiotics requires global focus combined with local action across both human and animal medicine”. It could also mean people going into hospital for surgical procedures are at increased risk. “It is important to remember that in the United Kingdom – and indeed throughout the European Union, veterinary antibiotics are only available on veterinary prescription and have been banned as growth promoters since 2006”, she adds.
Increasing the supply of new antibiotic drugs.
The report suggest that these proposals would cost up to 40 billion USA dollars over 10 years, which could be paid for by reallocating a fraction of funding from global institutions, allocating a small percentage of G20 nations healthcare funding, and a tax on antibiotics. Low and middle-income countries should be subsidised to buy the tests.
“There is no excuse for inaction given what we know about the impact of rising drug resistance”, the paper said. We need to act now.
The report points out that the process of determining whether or not a patient needs antimicrobial drugs, especially antibiotics, has not changed for decades.
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He said there should be a “surcharge on the rest of the industry that chooses not to play” and that “we think that is an option that should be given serious attention from policy makers”. He called that “truly shocking” and said that as well as the “tragic human costs”, AMR had a “very real economic cost, which will continue to grow if resistance is not tackled”.
