The Health Secretary has announced £4.5 million of funding for a global antibiotic research fund to help millions of people in low-and middle-income countries.

According to Sajid Javid, the UK is leading the race to find new treatments for drug-resistant infections.

There were more than 90,0000 hospital admissions in England in 2019/20 as a result of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is an increase of nearly four per cent compared to the previous year. Antimicrobial resistance is when infections evolve so that current treatments such as antibiotics are no longer effective. AMR kills 33,000 people a year in Europe and millions around the world with one in five of these deaths a child under five. AMR currently kills more people than HIV or malaria. Without urgent action, experts believe that by 2050, deaths could reach 10 million a year globally.

The government's Global AMR Innovation Fund (GAMRIF) will make an investment of £4.5 million to support the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) in developing new treatments for drug-resistant infections, which have been identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the greatest threat to global health and development. The UK has now invested £19m in GARDP programmes, including developing new and improved treatments for neonatal sepsis, hospital acquired bacterial infections, and pneumonia.

The investment is part of the Government's 20-year vision and five-year National Action Plan for AMR. The funding will also be put towards finding a new treatment for gonorrhoea which the WHO has said urgently requires new antibiotics.

Mr Javid commented: “Antimicrobial resistance is the greatest threat to global health, tragically killing millions of people every year, but it isn’t widely known about. The consequences of not addressing this silent pandemic now could be catastrophic and result in a future where we are unable to treat common illnesses such as pneumonia and infections in newborns with modern medicines.
“The UK’s investment will develop vital treatments, protecting millions of people in low-and middle-income countries and around the world to bolster our global health security.”

Debbie Shawcross, professor of hepatology and chronic liver failure at King’s College London, said: “Antibiotics save lives, but antimicrobial resistance is a coming plague. Drug-resistant infections are now the leading cause of death worldwide, with 1.27 million in 2019. Tackling antimicrobial resistance is a matter of urgency.”