Global Fund For Fighting Superbugs

A global fund needs to be created to develop antibiotics to fight the growing threat of drug-resistant superbugs, a British government-backed review pointed out.

The review, led by the economist and former Goldman Sachs Chief Jim O'Neill, said that a lot of innovative thinking is happening in infectious disease research at the moment. These ideas need to be developed. Lack of funding means that while people and laboratories are ready to counter the challenges, they are unable to do so.

The problem of infectious bugs becoming drug-resistant has been looming in medicine since the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 1928. The risk has grown in recent years as bugs have developed resistance to multiple drugs and drugmakers have cut investments in this field.

The World Health Organisation has warned that unless something drastic is done, a post antibiotic era, where infection occurs during routine operations, could arrive in this century. Anti-microbial resistance could kill an extra 10 million people a year and cost up to $100 trillion by 2050 if the spread of superbugs is not arrested.

New drugs take 10 to 15 years to come to market, so it is imperative that the research should begin now. Currently, infectious diseases and the medical interventions to prevent them are an underfunded poor relation compared to chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, dementia and cancer.

A targeted innovation fund is required to support the kind of research needed to pave the way for new drugs, for alternatives to antibiotics and for new testing technology that is vital to ensure that the right drugs are used. O’Neill, who chairs the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, called on international funders, philanthropic and governmental, to allocate money to a fund that can support the necessary research. Other recommendations include considering new combinations and doses of existing drugs and improving diagnostics to reduce unnecessary prescribing.

Unless action is taken, resistant bugs will be claiming more lives in 2050 than the number that currently dies from cancer.

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