A co-ordinated global response is needed to tackle the growing resistance to antibiotics and other drugs, experts said yesterday.
Professor Mark Woolhouse, of the University of Edinburgh, and Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, told guests at a Royal Society event (22 May) that without an international commitment, simple infections that have been treatable for decades could become deadly diseases.
The scientists, whose comment piece on the subject is also published in Nature, warn that treatment for many infectious diseases is now reliant on one or two drugs.
They recommend the foundation of a global organisation similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to lead an international response to counter the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance.
They describe the response to the threat, which has been caused by the overuse and misuse of antimicrobial drugs, as “feeble”.
Calling for the creation of an independent body that would oversee surveillance efforts and set strict evidence-based targets, they said it should work closely with national governments and international agencies.
Dr Farrar said: “We have needed to take action against the development of antimicrobial resistance for more than 20 years.
“Despite repeated warnings, the international response has been feeble. The World Health Organisation has missed opportunities to provide leadership, and very little progress has been made.
“The result has been the emergence of strains of infections including tuberculosis and malaria, pneumonia and gonorrhoea that resist all known classes of drugs.”
Professor Mark Woolhouse added: “The time has come to stop re-stating the problems of antimicrobial resistance and start taking action. We need independent, international leadership on this issue before the massive health gains that have been made since Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin are lost forever.”
Nature 22 May 2014 [abstract]
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