Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs Could Kill 39 Million People By 2050

Antimicrobial resistance is already killing millions around the globe, but deaths could surge by 68% between 2021 and 2050, according to a new study.

The hazards of Antimicrobial resistance are on the rise.

More than 39 million people worldwide could die from antibiotic-resistant infections over the next 25 years, and another 130 million could die of related causes, Gabriel Galvin reported for Euronews.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)—when bacteria or other pathogens evolve to the point where antibiotics are no longer effective against them—happens when people overuse antibiotics in medicine and animal and crop farming.

These so-called superbugs make infections harder to treat as doctors scramble for alternatives and have directly killed about a million people every year since 1990, according to a new study published in The Lancet journal.

The hazards of AMR are on the rise.

By 2050, there could be 1.91 million deaths directly from AMR and 6.31 million deaths from AMR-related causes, meaning a drug-resistant infection played a role in someone’s death, but resistance itself may or may not have been a factor, according to the new estimates from the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) Project.

They found that from 1990 to 2021, AMR-related deaths fell by roughly 60% among children younger than 5, but surged by more than 80% for adults 70 and older.

That’s because vaccination programs and other infection prevention and control measures protected children, while many countries’ aging populations left older people vulnerable.