By Destiny Obinna
Global leaders have raised the alarm over the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), revealing that bacterial drug resistance was associated with more than 4.7 million deaths in 2021 and warning that inadequate action could worsen the global health crisis.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), governments must urgently move beyond political declarations and translate commitments into funded interventions, warning that weak surveillance, poor infection prevention, inadequate diagnostic facilities and misuse of antimicrobial medicines were undermining efforts to contain the threat.
The warning was issued ahead of the 2026 World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week, scheduled for November 18 to 24, under the theme, “One Health, One Action: Prevent AMR Now.”
Speaking at the sixth Annual Global Media Forum on AMR, Dr Jean-Pierre Nyemazi, Director a.i. of WHO’s Department of Antimicrobial Resistance, said the threat extended beyond hospitals and human health to agriculture, animal health, food production and the environment.
“AMR is one of the most urgent global health threats and development challenges. It threatens our ability to treat infections, protect animal and plant health, and produce safe food, and also has an impact on the environment,” he said.
Nyemazi stressed that the figures represented real human suffering. “These are not just statistics. Behind these numbers are patients, families, farmers and communities,” he said.
He expressed concern that the gap between global commitments and implementation remained wide, despite the 2024 United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AMR, where world leaders pledged to reduce bacterial AMR-associated deaths by 10 per cent by 2030.
The declaration also committed countries to ensuring that at least 60 per cent of them had funded national AMR action plans by 2030, alongside mobilisation of at least $100 million in catalytic funding.
“However, let’s be honest. The gap between commitments and pledges versus implementation remains wide,” Nyemazi said, identifying limited financing, fragmented coordination and weak surveillance as major challenges.
He said the Fifth Global High-Level Ministerial Conference on AMR, scheduled to hold in Abuja, Nigeria, from December 6 to 8, would review progress and push for stronger implementation.
An updated Global Action Plan on AMR for 2026–2036 has been finalised and is expected to be launched at the conference. The proposed Independent Panel on Evidence for Action against AMR is also expected to be launched in Abuja.
Nyemazi urged journalists to sustain public awareness and demand accountability from governments and stakeholders.
“You make visible what is often invisible. Your accurate, evidence-based and solution-focused reporting shapes public understanding, sustains political attention and holds all of us accountable,” he said.
Also speaking, Dr Kefas Samson, Senior Technical Officer and Lead of Multisectoral Coordination in WHO’s AMR Department, identified inadequate financing, weak surveillance systems, poor infection prevention, limited laboratory capacity, unequal access to quality-assured medicines and health workforce shortages as major obstacles.
“Significant gaps still persist, and progress among countries also remains uneven,” Samson said.
He described the updated Global Action Plan as “a renewed blueprint” for turning international commitments into measurable country-level interventions.
The plan prioritises infection prevention, responsible antimicrobial use, stronger laboratories, improved surveillance, equitable access to medicines and sustainable financing, while bringing human, animal, agricultural and environmental sectors together under the One Health approach.
Samson said the 2030 targets also included ensuring that 70 per cent of antibiotics used in human health belonged to WHO’s Access group and that 80 per cent of countries could test for priority bacterial and fungal pathogens.
The threat also extends to food production, with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) warning that global antibiotic use in livestock could increase by nearly 30 per cent by 2040 without intervention.
Dr Junxia Song, FAO Deputy Chief Veterinarian and Chief of its One Health and Disease Control Branch, said improved animal health and farm management practices could reduce antibiotic use by up to 57 per cent.
“Prevention must become central to the global fight against antimicrobial resistance, with farmers placed at the heart of the response,” she said.
Song said FAO was implementing its 10-year Reduce the Need for Antimicrobials on Farms initiative, known as RENOFARM, with more than 400 partners, including over 80 member countries.
She warned that agricultural priorities remained inadequately funded in many national AMR action plans, while nearly half of countries had no or only partial legislation governing antimicrobial use in animal and plant health.
On the environmental front, Aitziber Echeverria, AMR Coordinator at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), warned that pollution and poor waste management could undermine global efforts to contain drug resistance.
“The environment plays a key role in the emergence, transmission and spread of AMR. The environment and AMR cannot be treated separately. That is the One Health concept,” she said.
She identified pharmaceutical manufacturing, agriculture and food systems, healthcare, and municipal waste and wastewater management as priority areas for intervention.
“Environmental action on AMR is not an optional addition to the response. It is a prerequisite for success,” she said, calling for investment in wastewater treatment, safe disposal of medicines and environmental surveillance.
Similarly, Dr Jane Lwoyero of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) called for stronger vaccination, farm biosecurity, veterinary services and disease surveillance.
“For every US$1 that is invested in prevention of animal diseases and for better animal health systems, we are ensured of getting a return of US$28,” she said.
She disclosed that fewer than 20 per cent of WOAH member countries vaccinated animals against notifiable diseases, while animal diseases caused estimated annual losses of up to $300 billion globally.
Meanwhile, Shobha Shukla, Chairperson of the Global AMR Media Alliance and host of the forum, warned that even everyday injuries such as cuts and needle pricks could expose people to drug-resistant infections.
She called for an end to the misuse and overuse of antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines, stressing that prevention of infections must remain central to the global response.
Shukla said countries must move beyond developing action plans to ensuring that they have the funding, surveillance systems, laboratory capacity and accountability mechanisms needed to implement them.
She also advocated a people-centred response that balances preventing unnecessary antimicrobial use with ensuring access to effective medicines for patients who need them.
