• accident & emergency medicine
• anaesthetics
• anaesthesia
• intensive & critical care
• pain management

The Interagency Coordination Group on antimicrobial resistance (IACG), which includes members from the United Nations (UN), the WHO, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Organisation for Animal Health, released a report containing critical recommendations to combat drug-resistant infections and to prevent the staggering number of deaths caused by antimicrobial resistance each year.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is increasingly becoming a global problem which calls for immediate, coordinated and ambitious action. In line with the European Commission’s One Health initiative, also the IACG report calls for a multisectoral ‘One Health’ approach in order to jointly avert a potentially disastrous drug-resistance crisis.

Recommendations of the IACG are linked to the acceleration of progress, innovation, collaboration, investment into sustainable responses as well as strengthened accountability and global governance. Countries are encouraged:

• To prioritise national action plans to scale-up financing and capacity-building efforts.

• To put in place stronger regulatory systems and support awareness programs for responsible and prudent use of antimicrobials by professionals in human, animal and plant health.

• To invest in ambitious research and development for new technologies to combat antimicrobial resistance.

• To urgently phase out the use of critically important antimicrobials as growth promoters in agriculture.

The report calls on countries to intensify the efforts and to jointly work together on overcoming AMR which has also been identified as a major barrier to the implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, in particular those linked to universal health coverage, secure and safe food, sustainable farming systems and clean water and sanitation.