Daijiworld Media Network – Geneva

Geneva, Oct 13: A new World Health Organization (WHO) report has raised alarms over the growing threat of antibiotic resistance worldwide, revealing that one in six bacterial infections in 2023 could not be treated with available antibiotics. The Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Report 2025, launched on Monday, shows that resistance is spreading faster than medicine can keep up.

Between 2018 and 2023, resistance increased in more than 40 percent of monitored bacteria–antibiotic combinations, rising annually by 5–15 percent. The report, which for the first time provides resistance estimates across 22 commonly used antibiotics, analysed eight major pathogens responsible for urinary tract, gastrointestinal, bloodstream infections, and gonorrhoea, including E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter spp., Staphylococcus aureus, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Shigella spp., Salmonella spp., and Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Resistance is most pronounced in the South-East Asian and Eastern Mediterranean regions, where nearly one in three infections is resistant. In Africa, the figure is one in five. Countries with weaker healthcare systems are particularly vulnerable, as they lack the capacity to diagnose and treat infections effectively. WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said antimicrobial resistance is outpacing modern medicine, threatening families worldwide, and called for responsible antibiotic use alongside broader access to quality medicines, diagnostics, and vaccines.

Drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria, particularly E. coli and K. pneumoniae, pose the gravest threat, often causing severe bloodstream infections that can result in sepsis and death. Globally, over 40 percent of E. coli and more than 55 percent of K.
pneumoniae are resistant to third-generation cephalosporins, the first-choice treatment, while in Africa resistance exceeds 70 percent. Resistance to other essential antibiotics, including carbapenems and fluoroquinolones, is also rising, narrowing treatment options and pushing reliance onto costly last-resort drugs that are often unavailable in low- and middle-income countries.

Surveillance has improved, with participation in WHO’s GLASS network increasing from 25 countries in 2016 to 104 in 2023. Yet nearly half of countries did not report data in 2023, and many still lack systems to generate reliable information. The 2024 UN General Assembly’s political declaration on antimicrobial resistance urged countries to adopt a ‘One Health’ approach integrating human, animal, and environmental health. WHO has now called for all countries to submit high-quality AMR and antibiotic use data to GLASS by 2030 to inform treatment and policy decisions.

The report comes with a digital dashboard offering regional and country-specific summaries of antimicrobial resistance and use. WHO warned that without urgent global action, common infections could again become deadly, threatening decades of medical progress.