Published in PLOS Global Public Health during World AMR Awareness Week, the analysis shows that 89 countries have no publicly available genomic data for key drug-resistant pathogens, and 146 have not been able to contribute any data since 2020.
AMR already causes more than a million deaths each year and makes routine medical care increasingly challenging. The authors stress that without stronger and more equitable global surveillance systems, resistant infections will continue to undermine modern medicine.
The study uses data drawn from amr.watch, a freely accessible platform developed by Oxford’s Centre for Genomic Pathogen Surveillance (CGPS) at the Pandemic Sciences Institute, Nuffield Department of Medicine. Despite more than 620,000 genomes being available globally, nearly 90% come from high-income countries, with the USA and UK alone contributing over 65%. Barriers such as limited laboratory capacity, high costs, and data infrastructure gaps continue to hinder sequencing efforts in many low- and middle-income regions.
Read the full story on the Nuffield Department of Medicine website.