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New targets: reduce deaths from antibiotic resistance and improve access to antibiotics
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Access to effective antibiotics is essential for all health systems worldwide. Antibiotics prolong life, reduce disability, reduce health care costs, and enable other life-saving medical interventions such as surgery. However, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens this foundation of modern medicine and is already causing preventable deaths and illnesses.
Speaking at the World Health Assembly on 28 May 2024, leading scientists authoring a new series of publications in the Lancet, including researchers from St George's University in London, are calling for urgent global action to tackle AMR, to ensure more sustainable access to antibiotics and to increase investment in new antibiotics, vaccines and diagnostics.
Every year, about 7.7 million deaths worldwide are caused by bacterial infections – that’s 1 in 8 of all global deaths, making bacterial infections the second-largest cause of death worldwide. Of these, nearly 5 million deaths are due to bacteria that have developed resistance to antibiotics.
Scientists warn that unless the world prioritises action to combat AMR now, we will see a gradual increase in the global death toll, with infants, the elderly and people with chronic illnesses or requiring surgery most at risk.
Improving and scaling up existing infection prevention practices – such as the use of paediatric vaccines, hand hygiene, routine cleaning and sterilization of equipment in health care facilities, access to safe drinking water and effective sanitation – could prevent more than 750 000 AMR-related deaths each year in low- and middle-income countries.
The 10-20-30 by 2030 goals
In the Lancet AMR series, a paper by Professor Mike Sharland and colleagues proposes ambitious but achievable global targets to ensure more sustainable access to effective antibiotics: the '10-20-30 by 2030' targets:
- 10% reduction in AMR mortality by scaling up public health infection prevention efforts, reducing both antibiotic use and resistance, and providing greater access.
- 20% reduction in inappropriate use of antibiotics in humans.
- A 30% reduction in inappropriate use of antibiotics in animals, which can be achieved through progressive action across sectors.
They believe these goals should be adopted at the upcoming high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly in September 2024 as part of universal access to effective antibiotics.
"The Lancet AMR series focuses on the need for clear and achievable targets to tackle AMR, with the panel recommending a 20% reduction in inappropriate antibiotic use. The ADILA project, a collaboration between St George's University and the University of Oxford, has led the modelling of potential future optimal use targets.
"The ADILA team has shown that current global patterns of antibiotic use are not fair or equitable, with low-income countries bearing a higher burden of infections and deaths and using fewer antibiotics. Future antibiotic targets should be based on a risk-based approach," says Professor Sharland.
To ensure these targets are met, Professor Sharland and other AMR experts will also call for the establishment of an independent scientific body - the Independent Panel on Antibiotic Access and Resistance - to expand the evidence base for policy and inform new targets.