How to fight antimicrobial resistance globally

Three weeks ago, G20 leaders committed to working together to address one of the world's most pressing and perplexing security threats: antimicrobial resistance (AMR) - a fierce and evolving adversary against which conventional therapeutic weapons are of no use.

The threat is straightforward: bacteria and other microbes are becoming resistant to available medicines faster than new medicines are being developed. Every year, drug-resistant microbes kill about 700,000 people worldwide - more than three times the annual death toll from armed conflicts.

Last year, a special panel commissioned by the British government predicted that, by 2050, as many as 10 million more people will die from drug-resistant microbes every year. AMR now poses a clear danger to every person on the planet. Unless we confront it head-on, we could return to a world in which it is common for people to die from basic infections.