Evidence submission: PAC Antimicrobial Resistance Inquiry
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major challenge to the UK’s health security, and is already responsible for a significant burden of death, disability and prolonged illness globally. If left unaddressed, the growing resistance of bacteria, viruses and fungi to the drugs commonly used to treat them threatens modern medicine, and with it, our ability to carry out standard medical procedures. A recent study in the Lancet estimated that, worldwide, 1.27 million deaths can be directly attributed to AMR — making it deadlier than HIV or malaria.
The UK is a world leader in its approach to AMR: publishing our first national strategy and action plan as early as 2000, and adding it to the National Risk Register in 2015, alongside risks such as “catastrophic terror attacks”, and “pandemic influenza”. To sufficiently ‘contain and control’ AMR by 2040, though, as the UK’s 20-year vision sets out, further action will be needed across government, with the close support of industry.
This submission to the Public Accounts Committee evaluates how well government is implementing plans to respond to the risks posed by AMR.
It is informed by several Reform think tank reports on AMR:
- Smart prescribing: harnessing technology in the fight against AMR (a Re:State Scholar publication by Dr Timothy Rawson)
- Powering the UK's approach to AMR: the future of AMR policy
- Powering the UK's approach to antimicrobial resistance