The darker blue portion clearly shows a huge , very worrying , predicted rise in death rates by AMR by 2050 . The figure indicates that although death rates
are still relatively small , AMR is increasingly becoming
a much larger problem .
In figure 7b it is apparent that the majority of
predicted AMR deaths in 2050 are in Africa and Asia . This can be explained by points mentioned previously ; in developing countries health care is very expensive leading to a lot of self-medication as it avoids the need for a professional . Also , prescription drugs in these countries can be easily purchased without the need for a prescription ( Bajpai et al ., 2017 ). This means AMR is much more widespread in less developed countries .
The World Bank believes that due to AMR , by 2050 annual global gross domestic product ( GDP ), the value of all goods and services produced , will fall by between 1.1 % and 3.8 %, and in low income countries the fall could exceed 5 % of their annual GDP . Also , there may be up to an additional 28.3 million people falling into extreme poverty in 2050 due to AMR .
Other impacts of AMR by 2050 are increases in global healthcare costs that may be in excess of US $ 300 billion per year , and a decrease in global livestock production which may be between 2.6 % and 7.5 % per year . According to the OECD , more intensive and also more expensive healthcare will be needed by patients due to resistance , with hospitals being required to spend up to an extra US $ 40,000 to treat a resistant bacterial infection . ( Ahmad and Khan , 2019 ).
To avoid the current resistance crisis becoming much worse in the future , antibiotic use needs to be controlled . In many developing countries there are poor laws regarding the dispensing of antibiotics , making it too easy for antibiotics to be misused . It needs to be harder to get antibiotics , so they are only used when necessary .
Conclusions
The public needs to be educated on how to use antibiotics properly , and on antibiotic resistance as well as its causes ( Bajpai et al ., 2017 ). Many people do not know they are using antibiotics wrongly , and that they could be adding to the resistance crisis . Also , the development of antibiotic resistance is not something that would be immediately obvious to someone without a certain level of scientific knowledge , which not everyone has .
Antibiotic resistance can be controlled easily right now , but if the current situation continues to worsen , we will reach a point in the future where the spread of some bacterial infections becomes uncontrollable , and we will be able to do nothing about it . Changes must be made urgently before this point is reached . References Ahmad , M . and Khan , A . U . ( 2019 ) ‘ Global economic impact of antibiotic resistance : A review .’ Journal of Global Antimicrobial Resistance , 19 pp . 313-316 Bajpai , V . K . et al . ( 2017 ) ‘ Self-medication and antibiotic resistance : Crisis , current challenges , and prevention .’ Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences , 24 ( 4 ) pp . 808-812
