Completed Infection & Immunity Pregnancy, Children & Inherited Conditions

Mapping and monitoring the global burden of antimicrobial-resistance/drug-resistant infections

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Recipient organisation University of Washington
Funding £2.5M
Period Sept 2017 — Jul 2021

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Doctors and public health officials cannot say with certainty how many people are dying from drug-resistant infections, or where the worst hotspots are. This project aims to fix that by pulling together scattered data from hospitals, labs, and health records around the world into a single, rigorous global picture. Antimicrobial resistance has been recognised as a threat for decades, but the information about its true geographical spread and prevalence remains surprisingly poor. Without reliable numbers on how many infections are drug-resistant, where they occur, and how this has changed over time, it is impossible to measure the problem accurately or to know which interventions are working. This project fills that gap by incorporating drug-resistant infections into the Global Burden of Disease Study, the standard framework used to track health trends worldwide. If successful, the research will produce interactive maps and visualisations showing the burden of resistance over time, openly accessible to anyone. This would give governments, hospitals, and funding agencies a concrete benchmark to measure whether their efforts to combat resistance are actually reducing deaths and illness. It would also reveal where resources are most urgently needed, turning a vague global threat into a measurable, manageable problem.

View original technical description
The increasing number and distribution of pathogens that are resistant to antimicrobial drugs is one of the greatest threats to global health, creating a potential health crisis from infections that were once easy to treat. Despite long-standing recognition of antimicrobial resistance (AMR, also known as drug-resistant infections, DRI’s) across many settings, there is surprisingly poor information about its current and historical geographical distribution and prevalence. This makes formal assessments of its burden difficult to gauge, limiting the ability to drive agendas to combat AMR/DRI. Through incorporating AMR/DRI into the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study, we will provide rigorous quantitative evidence to increase global awareness and surveillance of AMR/DRI, leading towards reductions in its morbidity, mortality, and cost. This work includes collation and synthesis of existing data; developing analytical methods to estimate the fraction of burden from causes attributable to AMR/DRI; and producing and incorporating estimates into interactive maps and visualizations for public access. Results will assess the burden of AMR/DRI over time and provide a benchmark for measuring impact of interventions on future burden. Analyses such as these are urgently required to provide an informed evidence base and quantification of the resultant burden of AMR/DRI on public health.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Christopher Murray (EPMC Awardee)Simon Hay (EPMC Awardee)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Rethinking How to Understand the Burden of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria: establishing best-practice through comparative analyses
Phase 2 of the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) Project
The Global Governance of Antimicrobial Resistance: An Empirical Analysis of Participation and Effectiveness
Global Antibiotic Policy initiative – GAPi
AMRnet

Original classification

Discretionary award – DRI

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.