Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remains a major health
threat, warns the World Health Organization (WHO). With
bacterial AMR associated with more than 4.7 million deaths
in 2021, WHO) is urging action across all sectors
now.
“AMR is one of the most urgent global health
threats and development challenges. It threatens our ability
to treat infections, protect animal and plant health, and
produce safe food, and also has an impact on the
environment,” said Dr Jean-Pierre
Nyemazi, Director a.i. of WHO’s Department of
Antimicrobial Resistance and Director of the Quadripartite
Joint Secretariat on AMR.
Dr Nyemazi was speaking at
the 6th Annual Global Media Forum on AMR ahead of the World
AMR Awareness Week (WAAW 2026: November 18-24). WAAW theme
this year is “One Health, One Action: Prevent AMR
Now.”
“These are not just statistics.
Behind these numbers are patients, families, farmers and
communities,” Dr Nyemazi said.
AMR is driven by
antimicrobial misuse and overuse, gaps in infection
prevention, poor water and sanitation, and environmental
contamination.
At the 2024 United Nations General
Assembly High-Level Meeting on AMR, world leaders adopted a
Political Declaration and pledged to reduce bacterial
AMR-associated deaths by 10 per cent by 2030, against a 2019
baseline of 4.95 million. They also committed to ensuring
that at least 60 per cent of countries have funded national
AMR action plans by 2030. The Political Declaration called
for at least US$100 million in catalytic funding, including
through the AMR Multi-Partner Trust Fund.
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“However,
let’s be honest. The gap between commitments and
pledges versus implementation remains wide,”
Nyemazi said, citing limited financing, fragmented
coordination and weak surveillance.
The Quadripartite
Joint Secretariat on AMR includes the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Health Organization
(WHO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH).
Quadripartite agencies are helping countries strengthen
governance, surveillance, responsible antimicrobial use and
infection prevention.
An updated Global Action
Plan on AMR for 2026–2036 has been finalised
which is likely to be launched at the Fifth Global
High-Level Ministerial Conference on AMR in Abuja, Nigeria
during 6-8 December 2026.
Dr Nyemazi confirmed that
work is advancing to establish the Independent Panel on
Evidence for Action against AMR (IPEA) and mobilise
resources. IPEA is also likely to be launched in Abuja at
the global meet next month.
Dr Nyemazi said global
pledges must deliver results in communities and urged
journalists to sustain public attention: “You make
visible what is often invisible. Your accurate,
evidence-based and solution-focused reporting shapes public
understanding, sustains political attention and holds all of
us accountable.”
“The 5th Global High Level
Ministerial Conference on AMR will review progress, address
implementation challenges, and renew political commitment on
AMR. However, global pledges matter only when they
deliver results in communities,” said Dr
Nyemazi.
Country-level action is key as AMR
commitments outpace implementation
WHO is urging
countries to turn global antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
commitments into funded and measurable actions, warning that
inadequate financing, weak surveillance and shortages of
diagnostics and health workers continue to undermine
progress.
Dr Kefas Samson, Senior
Technical Officer and Lead of Multisectoral Coordination in
WHO’s AMR Department, emphasised on supporting governments
to assess needs, cost interventions and adapt implementation
to local realities and available resources. WHO is also
pushing to strengthen primary healthcare and community-based
services to promote infection prevention, early diagnosis
and timely, appropriate treatment.
“Significant gaps
still persist, and progress among countries also remains
uneven,” Dr Samson said. He identified inadequate
financing, gaps in nationwide surveillance of AMR and
antimicrobial use, weak infection prevention in healthcare
facilities, limited diagnostic capacity and unequal access
to quality-assured antimicrobials as major barriers.
Workforce shortages compound the problem.
WHO is
strengthening surveillance and monitoring to generate robust
data, track implementation of the updated Global Action Plan
on AMR (2026-2036) and measure progress towards the 2030 AMR
targets.
Other 2030 goals include ensuring that 70 per
cent of antibiotics used in human health belong to WHO’s
Access group, and that 80 per cent of countries can test for
priority bacterial and fungal pathogens included in the
Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System,
said Dr Samson.
Dr Samson described the
updated Global Action Plan on AMR for 2026–2036 as “a
renewed blueprint” for translating the 2024 UN
Political Declaration into measurable country-level
action.
The plan strengthens the One Health approach,
bringing human, animal, agricultural and environmental
sectors together. It prioritises prevention, cross-sector
surveillance, responsible antimicrobial use, stronger
laboratories, equitable access, resilient supply chains,
research, innovation and sustainable financing.
“It
is not just a plan; but a framework that translates the
aspirations and ambitions of the political declaration on
AMR 2024 into tangible actions at the country level,” said
Dr Samson.
Samson said WHO and its Quadripartite
partners were developing practical guidance to help
countries set priorities and accelerate implementation, with
the Fifth Global High-Level Ministerial Conference on AMR in
Abuja offering a further opportunity to secure measurable
progress.
Without action, livestock antibiotic use
could surge 30% by 2040
“FAO’s recent study – The
Future of Antibiotics Use in Livestock – shows that without
action, global antibiotic use in livestock could increase by
nearly 30% by 2040. But with good practices on better animal
health and better practices on farm management, antibiotic
use could be reduced by up to 57%. This is the power of
prevention,” said Dr Junxia Song, Deputy
Chief Veterinarian and Chief of its One Health and Disease
Control Branch, Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations (FAO). “Prevention must become
central to the global fight against antimicrobial
resistance(AMR), with farmers placed at the
heart of the response.”
She said the
updated Global Action Plan on AMR for 2026–2036, following
the 2024 UN Political Declaration, firmly recognises
the agri-food sector’s role in the One Health
response.
However, translating commitments
into farm-level action remains a major challenge. FAO’s
assessment shows that agri-food priorities remain
inadequately integrated and funded in many national AMR
action plans, while nearly half of the countries have either
no or only partial legislation governing antimicrobial use
in animal and plant health.
FAO is addressing the gap
through its 10-year initiative, Reduce the Need for
Antimicrobials on Farms (RENOFARM), built around five
pillars: good health services, production practices,
alternatives and innovation, incentives, and connections.
More than 400 partners, including over 80 FAO Member
Countries, are already engaged in this
initiative.
Surveillance is another
priority. Through its InFARM system, FAO has
engaged 80 countries in strengthening AMR monitoring across
agri-food systems, helping governments improve policies and
target resources. “Awareness and commitments are
important, but they are not enough,” Song said,
calling for stronger services, incentives, financing and
capacity.
She stressed that solutions must be
practical, affordable and rewarding for farmers.
“By making prevention work on the ground, we can
reduce the need for antibiotics while improving
animal health, productivity, food safety and food
security.”
Environmental neglect could undermine
global fight against AMR
The global fight against
antimicrobial resistance (AMR) risks failure unless
countries tackle environmental pollution alongside human,
agriculture and animal health
interventions.
“The environment
plays a key role in the emergence, transmission and spread
of AMR, as per the UNEP report Bracing
for Superbugs. The environment and AMR cannot be treated
separately. That is the One Health concept,” said
Aitziber Echeverria, AMR Coordinator,
Chemicals and Health Branch, United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP).
She added: “We are moving now from
recognizing the environmental dimensions of AMR to
systematically addressing them. We now need implementation.
As stated in the 2024 UN General Assembly Political
Declaration, to tackle AMR we need to combine
multi-sectoral and sector-specific actions, and the
environment needs to be considered at the core, as part of
the solution.
Environment plays a critical
role in the emergence, transmission and spread of
drug-resistant microorganisms and must become central to
national AMR strategies.
“Environmental
action on AMR is not an optional addition to the response.
It is a prerequisite for success,” Echeverria
said.
A significant milestone came in December 2025
when the United Nations Environment Assembly adopted a
resolution on the environmental dimensions of AMR,
strengthening the global mandate for coordinated
action.
Echeverria identified four priority sectors
requiring urgent intervention: pharmaceutical manufacturing,
agriculture and food systems, healthcare, and municipal
waste and wastewater management. Reducing antimicrobial
residues, resistant microorganisms and resistance genes
released into the environment must be a priority.
She
called for stronger environmental monitoring and
surveillance, noting that reliable data could help countries
identify emerging AMR hotspots and direct interventions
where they are most needed.
However, environmental
authorities remain inadequately represented in many national
AMR governance structures.
“A truly effective One
Health approach requires environmental actors to be involved
from the outset,” said Echeverria, urging governments to
integrate funded environmental objectives into national
action plans.
Priorities include investment in
wastewater treatment, safe antimicrobial disposal,
laboratory capacity and environmental
surveillance.
Echeverria stressed that tackling
environmental AMR would also advance water security,
biodiversity protection and pollution
reduction.
Greater investment in animal health is
must to curb AMR
“For every US$1 that is invested
in prevention of animal diseases and for better animal
health systems, we are ensured of getting a return of
US$28,” shared Dr Jane Lwoyero, Programme
Officer, World Organisation for Animal Health
(WOAH).
“Stronger vaccination, farm biosecurity,
surveillance and veterinary services are essential to
preventing infections and reducing antimicrobial use,”
said Dr Lwoyero.
She warned that prevention remains
inadequate, with only less than 20 per cent of WOAH Member
Countries vaccinating animals against notifiable diseases.
Animal diseases cause estimated annual losses of up
to US$300 billion globally. WOAH is updating its
evidence-based list of priority animal diseases for which
vaccination could reduce antibiotic use. Its PREVENT Forum
is also bringing public and private partners together to
address barriers to vaccine access and national vaccination
strategies.
Surveillance findings offer some progress.
Previous WOAH ANIMUSE reports showed global antimicrobial
use in animals fell by 3 per cent between 2019 and 2024.
However, antimicrobial growth promotion remains a
concern.
According to WOAH, 74 per cent of
countries do not use antimicrobials for growth promotion,
while 19 per cent report using them. Another 7 per cent have
not reported their position, leaving their practices
unknown. Countries permitting the practice use 45
per cent more antimicrobials than those that do
not, said Lwoyero.
Lwoyero urged
countries to end antimicrobial growth promotion and
strengthen responsible use of
antimicrobials.
“Strengthening coordination
of AMR across all sectors will help us have stronger AMR
governance,” she said, highlighting the need to
integrate animal health into national action plans.
She also called for increased sustainable
financing, including through the AMR Multi-Partner Trust
Fund, to strengthen veterinary services and prevention
systems.
“Prevention of animal diseases and
infections unlocks stronger and more resilient animal health
systems,” she said, stressing that protecting human health
begins with healthier animals and safer
food.
A simple injury – a cut or a needle
prick or any other such day-to-day accident – can put us at
risk of AMR
“A simple injury – a cut or a
needle prick or any other such day-to-day accident – can put
us at risk of getting infected with drug-resistant
infections – which could be difficult to treat due to AMR
or worse – incurable. This could happen to our lovely
plants and animals too – and is polluting our environment
– our mother Earth too. We need to save the medicines that
protect us. We are talking about antibiotics, antifungals,
antivirals and antiparasitics or other medicines. We need to
stop misuse and overuse of medicines that fuels
antimicrobial resistance. And most importantly, we need to
ensure no one gets infected with preventable infectious
diseases,” said Shobha Shukla,
Chairperson of Global AMR Media Alliance (GAMA) and Host of
6th Annual Global Media Forum on AMR ahead of WAAW
2026.
Shobha Shukla added that “The central
challenge is no longer simply getting countries to recognise
AMR or develop national action plans. It is ensuring that
countries have the funding, surveillance systems, laboratory
capacity, effective interventions and accountability
mechanisms to implement them. The 2026 -2036 AMR Global
Action Plan establishes a renewed international framework
for the next decade. Its strategic objectives show an
important shift towards prevention-first
interventions, sustainable agrifood systems,
environmental measures and stronger national implementation.
Countries’ responses must balance preventing unnecessary
antimicrobial use while ensuring that people who genuinely
need effective medicines can obtain them. A multi-sectoral
response under the One Health banner is warranted to prevent
AMR. Equally important is to humanize AMR response at all
levels in a person-centred, rights-based and gender
transformative manner.”
Shobha Shukla
Founding
Executive Director and Managing Editor, C N
S
Chairperson, Global AMR Media
Alliance – GAMA
President, Asia Pacific
Media Alliance for Health, Gender and Development Justice
(APCAT Media)
Coordinator:
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