This post is a summary of some of my work as a field strategy consultant at Schmidt Futures' Act 2 program, where I spoke with over a hundred experts and did a deep dive into antimicrobial resistance to find impactful investment opportunities within the cause area. The full report can be accessed here.AMR is a global health priorityAntimicrobials, the medicines we use to fight  infections, have played a foundational role in improving the length and quality of human life since penicillin and other antimicrobials were first developed in the early and mid 20th century.Antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites evolve resistance to antimicrobials. As a result, antimicrobial medicine such as antibiotics and antifungals become ineffective and unable to fight infections in the body. AMR is responsible for millions of deaths each year, more than HIV or malaria (ARC 2022). The AMR Visualisation Tool, produced by Oxford University and IHME, visualises IHME data which finds that 1.27 million deaths per year are attributable to bacterial resistance and 4.95 million deaths per year are associated with bacterial resistance, as shown below.Figure 1: Composition of global bacterial infection related deaths, from AMR Visualisation ToolThis burden does not include that of non-bacterial infections, such as fungi or pathogens, which might increase this burden by several factors. For instance, every year, there are 150 million cases of severe fungal infections, which result in 1.7 million deaths annually (Kainz et al 2020). Unlike for bacterial infections, we do not have good estimates of how many of those are associated or attributable to resistance.Concerningly, AMR is  escalating at an increasing rate (USA data, Swiss data, Mhondoro et al 2019, Indian Council of Medical Research 2021). One prominent report estimates that AMR will result in 10 million deaths every year by 2050 (Jim O’Neill report, 2014).Even more concerningly, we may be at a critical juncture, where if we do not drastically change our current trajectory, we could run out of effective antimicrobials. This would mean that our ability to perform surgery, give cancer patients chemotherapy, or manage chronic diseases like cystic fibrosis and asthma, all of which hinge on the effectiveness of antimicrobials, would be significantly impacted. The very foundations of modern medicine could be threatened; the WHO has warned that we could return to a pre-antibiotic age, which would result in the average human life expectancy going down from 70 to 50 (WHO, 2015).Beyond the health effects, there is a profound economic cost to AMR – for patients, healthcare systems and the economy. In the USA, the CDC estimates that the cost of AMR is $55 billion every year (Dadgostar 2019). Studies show that as a result of AMR,  the annual global GDP could decrease by 1% and there would be a 5-7% loss in low and middle income countries by 2050 (Dadgostar 2019). In conjunction, the World Bank states that AMR might limit gains in poverty reduction, push more people into extreme poverty and have significant labour market effects.The importance of AMR is recognised by major governments and multilateral organisations. The WHO calls AMR [...]---
Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/W93Pt7xch7eyrkZ7f/cause-area-report-antimicrobial-resistance
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