UK moves to combat antimicrobial resistance with overseas investment

The UK is investing £210mn in tracking superbugs across Asia and Africa, in the hope of tackling antimicrobial resistance before the pathogens arrive in Britain. 

The funding was announced on Wednesday as health secretary Steve Barclay travelled to India for his first G20 health ministers meeting, where discussions will include how to address AMR. 

Antimicrobial resistance, where bacteria evolve so they cannot be destroyed by antibiotics, is linked to about 1.3mn deaths a year, with some studies estimating that it is more deadly than malaria or HIV.

Barclay said antimicrobial resistance is a “silent killer” that poses a “significant threat” to public health. 

“It’s vital it is stopped in its tracks and this record funding will allow countries most at risk to tackle it and prevent it from taking more lives across the world, ultimately making us safer at home,” he said. 

In 2019, AMR caused between 7,000 and 35,000 deaths in the UK, according to the government. Experts warn that a resistant bug could cause a future pandemic, and inhibit vital treatments, from surgery to chemotherapy, which rely on infection control.

Globally, there has been a dearth of new antibiotics because of poor incentives for drugmakers to invest in the field. Existing generic drugs are cheap to buy and new antibiotics must be used sparingly to avoid resistance developing.

To encourage drug companies to develop new medicines, Britain plans to expand its subscription model, where the government pays drug companies a fixed fee for supplying antibiotics.

Last month, the UK announced it intends to pay up to £20mn a year per antibiotic sold, no matter how many are prescribed. 

Barclay said some G20 countries are looking to implement the same subscription model to address the market failure.

The US has proposed a similar idea in the Pasteur Act, which has yet to pass Congress, while the EU is looking at other ways to encourage pharmaceutical companies to invest. 

But incentives targeted at western countries will not solve the problem in developing economies, where antibiotics are often overused because they are available without prescription.

The UK’s latest investment, taken from the health department budget, will support the Fleming Fund, which the government established in 2015 to fight antimicrobial resistance in low and middle income countries.

It will fund laboratories, disease monitoring systems and a global workforce to increase surveillance of potentially problematic pathogens in 25 countries where the threat is highest, including Indonesia, Ghana and Kenya.

The UK will also partner with India on surveillance, in an investment worth £3mn, and fund genomic sequencing technology that can help rapidly identify the pathogens developing resistance.