Unifying goals on AMR:
Saving lives and livelihoods
It’s time for bold action on AMR!
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a leading cause of death globally and kills more people than HIV/AIDS or malaria each year. Growing levels of AMR mean anyone–anywhere is at risk of acquiring a life-threatening drug-resistant infection. AMR also threatens food security, animal welfare, and the economy, while undermining progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.
This year’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) High-level Meeting on AMR provides a unique opportunity to adopt ambitious unifying goals for meaningful action on AMR.
We need bold action on AMR from UN Member States to set unifying goals that:
- promote equity by prioritizing the prevention of infections and sustainable access to life-saving treatments,
- take a multisectoral approach across human, animal, plant, and environmental sectors,
- motivate countries to develop context and sector-specific targets to achieve the unifying goals, and
- can be easily understood and used to communicate the need for bold political action on AMR.
Resources
Read the proposal from the Bellagio Group for Accelerating Action on AMR
Read the 1–10-100: Unifying goals to mobilize global action on antimicrobial resistance
From April 8-12, 2024, the Bellagio Group for Accelerating Action on AMR, a group of global policy and AMR experts from across One Health sectors, met to develop a proposal for equitable unifying goals on antimicrobial resistance.
The resulting goals are designed to rally public and political support for effective measures to address AMR. They engage the human health, animal health, and environmental health sectors and prioritize the prevention of infections and sustainable access to antimicrobial treatments.
The 1-10-100 unifying goals can also be used as an umbrella to structure more technical objectives that have been put forward by the Global Leaders Group on AMR (GLG), in the Lancet Series on Antimicrobial Resistance, and others.
Read the commentary in Gloalization and Health from the Bellagio Group for Accelerating Action on AMR
Watch the 1-10-100 slideshow
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions can save over a million lives annually that would otherwise be lost to infections. Prevention is also the most effective public health approach for ensuring the long-term effectiveness of antimicrobials. By preventing infections, we will reduce antimicrobial use, including where they are inappropriately prescribed for viral infections.
Infection prevention and biosecurity measures also reduce unnecessary antimicrobial use in agri-food systems without increasing the cost of food, contributing to more secure livelihoods for millions of people around the world. Access management (e.g. requirement of clean footwear), animal health management (e.g. vaccination programs), and operational management (e.g. pest control programs), can all contribute to reducing the spread of infection.
When infections occur, effective antimicrobials must be equally accessible to all, and used prudently. At the same time, innovative new solutions are needed, especially to treat infections that are increasingly resistant to existing antimicrobials. We must do more to improve incentives for the development of new treatments and diagnostics to prevent and treat infections, including new classes of antibiotics.
In the past, AMR was often viewed solely as a human health issue but is now understood to be a “One Health” challenge — which requires collaborative and coordinated actions across multiple sectors. For this reason, the Quadripartite Joint Secretariat on AMR made up of the UN agencies responsible for human health (World Health Organization), animal health (World Organisation for Animal Health), food security (Food and Agriculture Organization) and the environment (United Nations Environment Programme), was formed. This One Health approach promotes strategies that safeguard lives and livelihoods by reducing the transmission of resistant germs between people, animals (in farm, markets, and wildlife settings) and in the environment, while sustaining biodiversity.
To effectively address AMR, we must ensure stakeholders from all One Health sectors are working together to achieve unifying goals on AMR.
AMR is often communicated in technical terms with little attention paid to informing the public of the risks of AMR and what can be done to address it. Unifying goals on AMR could increase engagement with the public, patients, and communities affected by AMR by providing a barometer on progress, similar to the 2 degree unifying goal used in climate change communication.
Call for the Adoption of Unifying Goals on AMR!
If you’d like to be part of this campaign, use the assets below and the hashtag #1Ten100. Let’s unite our efforts and amplify our message together!
#1Ten100
