You may have heard about superbugs, drug-resistant bacteria, or antibiotic and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – all referring to one of the most pressing health challenges that the world is facing currently. AMR is high on public health agendas, it has attracted several hundreds of millions of pounds of research funding, and it risks to become one of the leading causes of death in the world by claiming an estimated 10 million lives annually by 2050. The World Bank argues that this will have an economic impact similar to the 2008 global financial crisis. Poor countries will be hit hardest, but rich countries are by no means safe because drug resistance is a global problem and drug-resistant bacteria can also be imported from abroad. The UK experienced this very recently, for example.
Dr Marco J Haenssgen discusses the application of management thinking to solving the growing global problem of antimicrobial resistance.
