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Antibiotic resistance has claimed at least one million lives each year since 1990: GRAM

Landmark GRAM Project study of global AMR burden over time forecasts a sharp rise in deaths, with 39 million lives lost between now and 2050

World map showing Death rate attributable to AMR, all ages, 2050
Death rate attributable to AMR, all ages, 2050

Resistance to antibiotics led to at least one million deaths each year since 1990, with increasing rates of drug-resistant infections expected to claim more than 39 million lives between now and 2050 without further policy action, according to a landmark study by the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) Project.

Published in the Lancet, ‘Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance 1990–2021: a systematic analysis with forecasts to 2050’, is the first comprehensive analysis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) trends over time. GRAM, a partnership between the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and Oxford, shows in the study that AMR has already claimed more than 36 million lives since 1990, with a death toll that is set to rise dramatically in future years.

Read the full story on the GRAM website.

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