Drug abuse Photo: IC

 More than 1.2 million people died in 2019 from infections caused by bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics, higher than HIV/AIDS or malaria, according to a new report published on Thursday.

Global health officials have repeatedly warned about the rise of drug-resistant bacteria and other microbes due to the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, which encourages microorganisms to evolve into "superbugs."

The new Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance report, published in The Lancet, revealed that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) was directly responsible for an estimated 1.27 million deaths and associated with about 4.95 million deaths. The study analyzed data from 204 countries and territories.

"These new data reveal the true scale of antimicrobial resistance worldwide... Previous estimates had predicted 10 million annual deaths from AMR by 2050, but we now know for certain that we are already far closer to that figure than we thought," said Chris Murray, co-author of the study and a professor at the University of Washington.

In 2021, the World Health Organization warned that none of the 43 antibiotics in development or recently approved medicines were enough to combat antimicrobial resistance.

Cornelius Clancy, professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, said one of the ways to tackle AMR is to look at a new treatment model.

"The traditional antibiotic model that we've had for past number of decades since penicillin. I think it is tapped out," he said.

Most of 2019's deaths were caused by drug resistance in lower respiratory infections such as pneumonia, followed by bloodstream infections and intra-abdominal infections.

AMR's impact is now most severe in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, while around one in five deaths is in children aged under 5 years.

There was limited availability of data for some regions, particularly many low and middle-income countries, which may restrict the accuracy of the study's estimates.

Clancy said the focus has been on COVID-19 for the past two years, but AMR is a "long-term kind of challenge."