The United Nations will hold a pivotal meeting to combat antibacterial resistance on Wednesday during its General Assembly session, in a move that some are calling a “wakeup call” in the war against deadly infections that kill thousands of people a year.
The meeting in New York, as part of the week-long General Assembly, will draw leaders from around the globe. It is the first high-level global meeting on antibiotic resistance and only the fourth time that the General Assembly has taken up a healthcare issue, with other meetings focusing on outbreaks such as Ebola.
“The disturbing truth is that the end of the antibiotic era is upon us in many parts of the world. But we are not too late,” said Michael Craig, senior adviser for antibiotic resistance coordination and strategy for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We need to continue to build on the momentum of our global commitment.”
The meeting is expected to produce a resolution for the U.N. to create a body to coordinate a global effort against superbugs. The resolution would then go to the full assembly for approval, which usually occurs.
Every year, antibiotic resistance kills at least 23,000 people and infects at least 2 million, according to the CDC. Antibiotic resistance could mean that treating infections becomes more difficult because medicines would be ineffective.
Resistance can be accumulated through two common ways: doctors prescribing unnecessary antibiotics and meat or poultry passing on resistance after being consumed by humans.
Livestock producers have used antibiotics to increase the weight of livestock and to make them resistant to disease. However, the use of so many antibiotics can cause the animals to become resistant to bacteria. That resistant bacteria can contaminate the foods that come from the animals, and then people who consume the foods can develop antibiotic-resistant infections, CDC said.
The U.S. government and World Health Organization have established programs over the past few years to address antibiotic resistance.
Last year, the White House put out a plan to combat the rise of superbugs that includes accelerating development of new antibiotics that infections aren’t resistant to and improving screening to identify antibiotic-resistant infections.
However, progress in other countries has been lacking.
“Most countries around the world have not really acted on it yet. India doesn’t have a specific plan. China only announced a plan this past week,” Ramanan Laxminarayan, founder of the independent research firm Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, told the Washington Examiner.
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