A Tyneside expert has played a leading role in a UN report on reducing the critical threat from superbugs.
The Bracing for Superbugs report warns that curbing pollution human, animal and other wastes is essential to reduce the threat from superbugs, with evidence that the environment plays a key part in the development, transmission and spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
The report forecasts that up to 10m deaths a year could happen due to strains of bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics. Antimicrobial resistance is considered one of the top global public health dangers, and the report on its dangers is co-authored by Newcastle University’s Professor David Graham.
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The report shows that antimicrobial resistance is closely linked to climate change, biodiversity and nature loss, and pollution and waste, driven by human activity, unsustainable consumption and production patterns, and calls for a change in human behaviour. The study analyzes areas which are key drivers of antimicrobial resistance development and spread in the environment: pharmaceuticals and other chemicals, agriculture and food, and healthcare, together with pollutants from poor sanitation, sewage and waste effluent.
The report says that as well as the health danger, antimicrobial resistance’s economic toll could result in a GDP drop of at least $3.4trn annually by 2030, pushing 24m more people into extreme poverty.
Prof Graham, based in Newcastle’s School of Engineering, said: “The new UN report on superbugs, AMR, and the environment is a game-changer because it provides strong evidence that our only way to prevent and reduce increasing AMR is through more holistic solutions, which cross all sectors.
“The ethos is called One Health, which states that human, animal and environmental health are intrinsically linked, and without reducing AMR in all sectors at once, AMR will continue to rise. The report’s importance is that it shows that the environment is central to AMR transmission and spread, even to and from the human and animal health sectors, and solutions to AMR must focus prevention across sectors and increased integrated surveillance.”
Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said: “Pollution of air, soil, and waterways undermines the human right to a clean and healthy environment. The same drivers that cause environment degradation are worsening the antimicrobial resistance problem. The impacts of anti-microbial resistance could destroy our health and food systems.”
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