Antimicrobial resistance was directly responsible for as many as 27 million deaths globally in 2019, according to a publication in the medical journal The Lancet that came out in January.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines antimicrobial resistance as “when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.” The WHO even declared antimicrobial resistance to be one among the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity.
According to the publication, 4.95 million of the total deaths were associated with bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 2019.
