CO-ADD welcomes Jim O'Neill's latest and final report on AMR

The UK Government commissioned economist Lord Jim O'Neill to report on global antibiotic resistance back in 2014. On Thursday 19 May 2016, the latest and final report was released.

The report brings together eight previous interim reports that recommended:

• An urgent and massive global awareness campaign as most people are ignorant of the risks
• Establishing a $2bn ($1.4bn) Global Innovation Fund for early stage research
• Improved access to clean water, sanitation and cleaner hospitals to prevent infections spreading
• Reduce the unnecessary vast antibiotic use in agriculture including a ban on those "highly critical" to human health
• Improved surveillance of the spread of drug resistance
• Paying companies $1bn (£0.7bn) for every new antibiotic discovered
• Financial incentives to develop new tests to prevent antibiotics being given when they will not work
• Promoting the use of vaccines and alternatives to drugs

The 10 point plan for tackling antimicrobial resistance includes the need to tackle the antibiotic supply problem. We need new drugs to replace the ones that are not working anymore because of drug-resistant bacteria. (P. 50-51)

1 million people would have died by the time the AMR Review was done

Listen to CO-ADD Director Matt Cooper radio interview with ABC News and Professor John Turnidge, appointed to lead program for national surveillance of antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic usage in Australia.