Drug-resistant bacteria deaths are projected to jump 70% by 2050

SALT LAKE CITY — Drug-resistant superbugs could kill more than 39 million people by 2050, according to a new study.

Deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections, already blamed for the loss of more than a million lives worldwide annually from 1990 to 2021, are projected to increase by almost 70% in 25 years, the study published Monday in The Lancet found, estimating 1.91 million people could die then as a direct result of what’s known as AMR, or antimicrobial resistance.

Over that same time, what’s described as the first in-depth analysis over time of the global health impacts of antimicrobial resistance estimated the number of deaths where antimicrobial-resistant bacteria plays a role could rise almost 75%, from 4.71 million to 8.22 million per year.

Older people will continue to be most at risk, the study found. Deaths of children from AMR declined 50% between 1990 and 2021 but went up more than 80% among those ages 70 and older. The study predicted that would continue, with the number of children under 5 dying from AMR expected to halve by 2050, while deaths among those 70 or older doubled.

Location is also a factor. Future deaths from AMR are anticipated to be highest in South Asia, with the study forecasting a total of 11.8 million deaths directly related to AMR between 2025 and 2050. The numbers are also expected to be high in other areas of southern and eastern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

“It’s a big problem, and it is here to stay,” Christopher J. L. Murray, senior author on the study and director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle, told The Washington Post. He called for “a concerted global effort” to reverse the trajectory.

That’s going to require “interventions that incorporate infection prevention, vaccination, minimizing inappropriate antibiotic use, and research into new antibiotics,” according to an American Association for the Advancement of Science news release. The study estimated such measures could prevent 92 million global deaths between 2025 and 2050.

The United Nations is set to hold a high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance later this month.

The issue is not new. A Deseret News editorial in 2001 called for an end to the “misuse of antibiotics,” citing an estimate from what is now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that 75% of antibiotics prescribed in outpatient settings were for respiratory infections, offering little or no benefit but contributing to the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

“Increasingly, we’re seeing that antibiotics are being overused or misused, which just puts more pressure on bacteria to become more resistant as time goes on,” Kevin Ikuta, a lead author on the new study and assistant professor of clinical medicine at UCLA, told The Washington Post.

Ikuta said that the 39 million deaths projected over the next 25 years equates to about three deaths every minute.