WHO Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance

The World Health Assembly adopted the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance in May 2015 as resolution WHA68.7. In presenting the 45-page plan, WHO warned that misuse and overuse of antimicrobial medicines had put every nation at risk and that, without harmonized and immediate global action, the world was heading towards a post-antibiotic era in which common infections could once again kill. The plan itself provided the framework for countries' own national action plans.

It set five objectives. Countries were to raise awareness and understanding of resistance through communication, education and training, and to strengthen knowledge through surveillance and research. They were to reduce the incidence of infection through better sanitation and hygiene. They were to optimize the use of antimicrobial medicines in both human and animal health. And they were to build the economic case for sustained investment in new medicines, diagnostic tools and vaccines.

The toll was measured seven years later. In The Lancet on 19 January 2022, Christopher Murray and colleagues estimated that 1.27 million deaths in 2019 were directly attributable to bacterial antimicrobial resistance, meaning they would not have happened had the infections been susceptible to drugs. A further measure counted 4.95 million deaths associated with resistant infections. By the first measure, resistance killed more people that year than HIV or malaria.

A 2024 follow-up study, cited by WHO, estimated that bacterial resistance was associated with more than 4.7 million deaths in 2021. Also in 2024, the UN General Assembly set a target of a 10 percent reduction in deaths associated with bacterial resistance by 2030, and in May 2026 the World Health Assembly adopted an updated Global Action Plan covering 2026 to 2036.