The head of the United Nations pressed countries for a global response to fighting antibiotic-resistant infections on Wednesday.
The U.N. General Assembly held a rare meeting in New York on Wednesday on superbugs, only the fourth meeting on health in the assembly’s history. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the goal of the meeting is to get commitments from countries and other important stakeholders.
“We need engagement from corporations and several sectors and sustained financing,” he said. “If we do this, we can create a world that is safer and more productive.”
Ban called growing resistance to medicines an “urgent concern,” and discussed the link between animals spreading antibiotic resistant infections to humans.
“Dangerous and new mechanisms for the spread of resistance are emerging and spreading throughout the world,” he said.
The meeting’s attendees passed a draft declaration to create a global coordinating body to fight antibiotic resistant infections. The declaration now goes to the full assembly for approval.
Other officials underscored the need for global action now on the issue.
“The situation is bad and getting worse,” said Dr. Margaret Chan, director of the World Health Organization. “The misuse of antimicrobials, including their underuse and overuse is causing these fragile medicines to fail.”
